


Proprietary Information

by notlucy



Series: Additional Information [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Wanda Maximoff, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Blindfolds, Bucky Barnes is oblivious, Bucky Barnes-centric, But then it catches fire, Cock Warming, Corporate Espionage, Crying, Dacryphilia, Daddy Kink, Dom/sub Undertones, Drawing, Face-Fucking, Feelings, Hand Feeding, Kink Negotiation, Light BDSM, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Older Man/Younger Man, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Porn With Plot, Praise Kink, Protective Steve Rogers, Rimming, Sick Bucky Barnes, Slow Burn, Spanking, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Subspace, Sugar Daddy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:17:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 85,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notlucy/pseuds/notlucy
Summary: Okay, so Bucky Barnes has a crush on Steve Rogers. The guy's gorgeous, talented and, oh yeah, the Chief Design Officer of the biggest tech company in the world. In other words: he's so far out of Bucky's league that he might as well be in a different stratosphere.





	1. The Interview

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crockzilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crockzilla/gifts).



_Fuck the MTA._

The thought had become a mantra, repeated over and over again as Bucky sprinted down the street towards Stark Tower, home of StarkTech, also known as the place where he had a job interview in exactly five minutes. He’d left his apartment at 9:12 exactly, and it most definitely wasn’t his fault that the train had been stopped on the tracks for _fifteen_ minutes. Or that it was approximately five billion degrees in the city and he was sweating through the polyester of his cheap suit. Granted, Natasha had told him to leave half an hour earlier than he’d actually gotten out the door, but what did she know? It wasn’t like she commuted to the city every day for work, except for the fact that she totally did.

Flustered, he pushed through the revolving doors into the gleaming lobby. The place felt like money, with marble and chrome and dark wood all over the place. It wasn’t all that busy of a lobby, though Bucky imagined it would be a little crazier right before the work day started. At 9:57, though, (shit shit shit) it wasn’t too bad. There were a few employees around, some on the phone or walking back into the building laden down with coffee orders. Bucky was very much hoping to become one of those laden coffee carriers, as his interview was for an administrative assistant position in the Public Relations division. So he squared his shoulders, adjusted the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder and walked towards the security desk, where several bored looking guards were alternately surveying the scene or playing on their phones.

“Help you, Sir?” one asked, glancing up from the screen he was monitoring to look Bucky over.

“Uh yes, I’m Bu...James Barnes. I have an interview with Maria Hill in the PR department at ten?”

The guard pointedly glanced at his watch, which Bucky thought was kind of a dick move, before he took his sweet time in examining his list. He clicked a few things, before pointing to his right, where there was a camera pointed out towards the lobby. “Step into the square on the floor, Mr. Barnes, and smile for the camera. We’ll get you a temporary ID and you can go on up.”

“Can I...could I get that later and just go up now?” he asked hopefully. The guard didn’t deign to respond, simply pointed to the camera. Bucky sighed, before stepping into the square.

At precisely 10:02 he was in possession of a cheap plastic ID printed with a grainy photo of himself looking like a disheveled monster. He was also nowhere near the actual floor he needed to be on, and the clock was ticking.

The ID did work on the barricade the first time, though, and he sprinted through to the elevator bank, where a door was just beginning to close. “Hold it, please!” he yelped, and by some miracle the blond guy already in the car reached an arm out to open the door back up.

“Thanks, so much,” Bucky said, breathless, as he stepped into the car. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem,” replied the man, “what floor?”

Bucky knew this part. He’d memorized the floor and office number before leaving the apartment, just in case, and he glanced over at the guy. The very cute guy, he now realized. Well, man, actually, since he was probably at least thirty-five, dressed impeccably in a dark navy suit, sporting a neatly trimmed beard and, wow, a great smile. But Bucky wasn’t there to flirt with cute, older guys. He was there to get a job, damn it.

“Uh…” he stammered, realizing he’d hesitated just a second too long. “Thirty-four. Public Relations.”

The man paused, reaching out his arm to catch the doors one more time, which confused the shit out of Bucky. “This elevator services floors forty and above,” he explained, gently, as though Bucky were a confused intern. Which, Bucky realized, was probably exactly what he looked like. “Tall building, gotta split ‘em up.”

“Shit,” Bucky managed, feeling the color drain from his face. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m really late. Sorry, thank you. Sorry for holding you up.” He darted out of the car without a glance back, and only then did he see the signs showing that the left bank of elevators serviced floors forty through eighty-five, while the right bank serviced floors two through forty.

Glancing at his watch told him it was now a full five minutes after ten, and he wondered if he ought to just give up and stay a barista forever. Sure, the shitty coffee shop near his shitty apartment in the shitty part of Brooklyn was, well, shitty, but he didn’t humiliate himself on a daily basis. Plus, the commute was a lot fucking easier.

It was 10:08 by the time Bucky pushed open the frosted glass doors stenciled neatly with “StarkTech - Public Relations” and approached the reception desk. A young woman was perched on the chair, typing something as Bucky approached. “Hi,” she greeted, glancing up at him with a smile. “Can I help you?”

“I’m uh, James Barnes. I’m really sorry I’m late, I have an interview with Maria Hill at ten and the train was delayed and the guard couldn’t get the printer to work and…” he realized he was rambling, and the woman mostly looked bemused.

“It’s no problem,” she said with a shrug. “Maria’s in a meeting that’s going over, so she won’t be ready to see you for a couple minutes anyway. You can take a seat.” She indicated the comfortable looking white chairs lining the entryway. “Do you want some water, or coffee?”

“Water would be...amazing,” Bucky replied, grateful for the reprieve as he crossed over to sit down. “Thank you so much.”

“Sure,” she said, smiling as she disappeared behind the desk for a second, before emerging with a bottle of cold water from (apparently) a magical hidden fridge. Slick stuff, dorm fridges behind desks. They really did things up right at StarkTech, apparently. “Here you go,” she said as she passed it to him. “I’m America, by the way. I’m an intern, not the receptionist, but I have to cover the desk when he’s in a meeting. Because he’s doing...well, the job you’re interviewing for. It’s a whole thing.”

Bucky knew he wasn’t exactly uniquely qualified for said job just because he had a degree in communications. Basically, he was exactly like every other schmuck with a useless comms degree who moved to New York to try and make something of themself. His only real advantage was the fact that he’d grown up in Brooklyn, so he already knew the city (and seriously, fuck the MTA). Additionally his ma had known someone who’d known someone who got him the StarkTech interview after he spent the first year out of undergrad as a barista in the world’s worst coffee shop.

“So uh, you guys are a little short-staffed?” he asked, twisting the cap off the water and downing nearly half of it immediately, because he still hadn’t quite recovered from the train and the sprinting and the embarrassment-in-front-of-a-cute-guy-in-an-elevator incident.

“That’s putting it mildly,” America replied, settling back into her seat and turning back to her keyboard. She was capable of multitasking, though, and she kept talking while Bucky dutifully worked on getting his breathing under control. “The old admin got promoted and the other admin was pissed that she got promoted over him, so he quit and now there’s nobody doing any of that stuff. Which means everyone gets to fill in. Except the interns, because someone screwed up a couple years ago and now none of us are trusted to accurately take notes.”

“Oh,” Bucky nodded, trying to file all of that away, in case it was useful later. “So they’re kind of desperate?” That was probably good. He could work with desperate.

“Um…” she thought about that, cocking her head to the side. “I don’t know if desperate is the right word. Demanding. And selective. Those are better.”

Demanding and selective. Not as good. Demanding and selective meant an Ivy League degree and internships coming out of one’s ass. Bucky had neither. Some internship programs, including the one at StarkTech, paid their interns. He knew because he had friends who’d gotten placements there in college. Of course, a paid internship as an undergrad meant not needing a summer job. America was lucky (and incredibly talented, considering she’d landed one). Bucky hadn’t been so lucky, and he’d spent his summers taking whatever work he could find to put some money towards the next year’s tuition bills. The extra annoying thing was that the kids who could afford the unpaid internships were the kids who already had everything handed to them in life. Now those same kids had a leg up in the job market, and they were the first in line for everything, including entry level admin jobs at places like StarkTech.

Still, Bucky willed himself not to freak out. He was going to get away with being late, apparently, so maybe things would be fine. He glanced up when he heard a door opening, and the sound of voices drifted from the hallway to America’s left, which Bucky couldn’t see from his vantage point. She winked at him before turning to greet the rather intimidating woman who approached the desk from said hallway. “Hi, Maria,” she said cheerfully. “Your ten o’clock is here. James Barnes.”

Bucky got to his feet, and whatever sense of calm he’d managed to cling to since arriving on the thirty-fourth floor turned to nerves again as he felt the familiar butterflies in his stomach. Maria Hill looked like she meant business, in a perfectly fitted skirt suit and heels that were so high they put her at the same height as him - and he wasn’t exactly short. He willed his palms not to sweat as he extended a hand to Maria. “Hi,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Hill.”

The woman smiled, a little, shaking his proffered hand quickly. “Maria’s fine, James, we’re not formal around here. Let’s go to my office.”

He followed her down another hallway, this one to the right of the reception desk. It was an open office setup, with desks grouped together into twos and divided by a storage unit. The actual offices lined the walls, and it had been designed in a way that let a lot of daylight into all the spaces, including those of the lesser mortals who weren’t office-worthy. Maria, of course, was office-worthy, and said office was nice, with frosted glass giving her some privacy and a nice view of the city out her window. It wasn’t the corner suite, but as the Director of Media Relations she had some clout.

“Have a seat,” she said, indicating the small conference table tucked into a corner. That was less intimidating than if she’d sat behind her desk, so maybe she wasn’t actually trying to intimidate him. She just did it naturally. Bucky sat as directed, fumbling with his bag to get out the folder that contained his resume. He put it on the table in front of him as Maria settled into the opposite chair with (damn it) her own copy alongside a nice looking leather notebook. “Thanks for coming in - I appreciate you waiting,” she began, uncapping her pen. “I’m afraid that’s part of the job around here; if a crisis comes up, everything else falls by the wayside while we deal with it.”

“Sure, of course, that makes sense,” Bucky agreed. “Especially if you’re dealing with the press, I bet.”

“Indeed,” Maria nodded, writing something in her notebook. “And we deal with the press a lot with Tony Stark as the SVP of R&D.” Bucky must have looked confused, because she smiled and shook her head. “That’s a joke, you can laugh.”

“Oh. Sorry, right.” Damn it. “Mr. Stark’s an interesting guy.”

“Why don’t I tell you a little bit about the job,” she went on, saving him from himself. Bucky nodded, and Maria launched into a spiel that told Bucky a lot of what he knew already about the position: it was support staff. He’d be dealing with supplies, day-to-day office stuff, scheduling meetings and other duties as assigned. It all seemed pretty standard. “Honestly,” she said, after running through the basics. “A lot of this role is supporting me personally, though it’s not officially an executive assistant position. It’s taking notes for me in meetings, keeping things in the department running smoothly, handling my calendar and communications, things like that.” She paused, leaning forward a little bit before speaking again. “You’ll have access to a lot of proprietary information, so discretion is paramount. I can’t stress that enough.”

Bucky nodded. He could deal with all of that. At that point a steady income was all he really cared about - one where he didn’t have to rely on tips or the kindness of strangers. Maria talked a little more before she started asking Bucky questions. She wanted to know about his background, where he saw himself in five years, what he was interested in learning, and where he saw his strengths. It got a little harder after that, as she asked him pointed questions about what he would do in a particular situation, or if he had any examples from prior jobs of how he’d handled issues. He felt like he was doing okay; he’d never had a real, salaried job before, but he’d been working since he was fifteen years old and he felt like he had a pretty good grasp of the politics and pitfalls that came with any type of employment.

“Alright,” she said finally, and a glance at the block on the wall told Bucky they’d been speaking for nearly an hour. He looked at her notebook and saw that she’d managed to cover an entire page with notes about him, which he was choosing to interpret as a good thing. “That covers my questions, James, is there anything you’d like to ask me?”

Bucky didn’t, not really, but the LinkedIn article he’d read about having a good job interview had said that he needed to have a question to ask, so he blurted out the first one that he remembered from the article. “What do you like best about working here?”

Maria looked a little surprised, and she laughed, raising an eyebrow. “I feel like you rehearsed that - if you were my client, I’d send you to media training. But that’s fine, it’s a good question.” She paused to think, as Bucky tried not to squirm. “It’s never boring,” she said finally, “It’s challenging, and I like that. I work with a great team of people, and part of me likes to think we’re helping to make people’s lives a little better with the technology created inside this building. But that’s a little cheesy, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Bucky replied before he could think any better of it. His eyes went wide when he realized, and he scrambled.. “I mean, no, the mission of the company is...it’s obviously really admirable and I think the uh, charitable contributions that StarkTech has made in the fields of uh, medical care in the developing world and…”

“James,” Maria cut him off, smiling. “It’s fine. You’re not screwing this up. I can tell you did your research before coming in, and I appreciate that you took the time to do so - a lot of candidates don’t. I can’t promise you anything, but you’re definitely still in the running.”

In the running! Bucky didn’t know if he’d ever heard three more beautiful words. “Really?” he asked, grinning. “That’s...awesome. Can I ask what comes next? I mean, if I uh...stay in the running?”

“Next, you’ll come back for another interview with me and my boss, James Rhodes, who’s the SVP of Public Relations. I’d like to go ahead and get that on the books today. If that goes well,  you’ll interview with a couple of my direct reports. You’d be reporting to me in the role, but dealing with them on a lot of issues. If that goes well, we’ll check references and then make a final decision. Sound good?”

It sounded, honestly, fucking awesome.

* * *

Four weeks later, Bucky had been back twice, as promised, for interviews. The one with James Rhodes had gone well, and he’d seemed to like Bucky (even if they’d disagreed on the best place to get bagels in midtown). The meeting with Maria’s senior staff had also been fine, though there’d been one guy, Brock Rumlow, who was also new to the company and seemed weirdly over eager to impress Maria during the interview by asking Bucky a lot of weird questions. In the end, though, he was pretty sure he’d killed both of the interviews, and he knew for a fact they’d called all his references. Then came two weeks of silence, which his overactive imagination interpreted as him not getting the job. So that was great. He was definitely going to be a barista forever.

Funnily enough, it was when he was walking home from a shift at the cafe that his phone rang. When he saw ‘Maria Hill’ flashing on the screen, he freaked, nearly dropping the device in his rush to answer it. “This is Bu...James.”

“James, hi,” she said, in that way she had of sounding kind of rushed, like she had something she needed to get to that was way more pressing than their conversation. “It’s Maria, from StarkTech. Listen, I’m sorry for the delay in the process. HR’s always a beast on the details. But the good news is, we’d like to make you an offer.”

Bucky’s brain short-circuited as she continued speaking, though he was vaguely aware of hearing a salary (not great, but infinitely better than his current state of financial woe) and a start date. “...of course, I understand if you need some time to think it over and discuss it with whomever you might need to…”

“No, I’ll take it! I don’t need to think, that’s great. It’s awesome, thank you so much, Maria, I can't wait to get started.”

“Well...wonderful,” she replied, sounding pleased. “Welcome aboard, James. I’ll get some paperwork over to you tonight, and we’ll get you in for orientation soon.”


	2. Orientation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets oriented and figures out exactly who he embarrassed himself in front of.

Bucky had learned exactly one thing so far during his hourlong tenure at StarkTech: orientation _sucked._

The prospect of spending his day in a windowless conference room drinking lukewarm coffee and eating stale bagels while watching a PowerPoint presentation about the history of the company? Bo-ring.

(The morning so far: blah blah founder Howard Stark blah blah son Tony Stark inherited blah blah new CEO Virginia Potts...blah blah BLAH.)

He was way more interested in the discussion of vacation time and benefits, which they’d promised was coming after lunch. That was how they got you: promising the goods but making you sit through the bullshit boring stuff first. It didn’t help that he was just the tiniest bit hungover, since Natasha had insisted they go out and celebrate his new gig. Somehow dinner and drinks at their local had turned into a shitshow of epic proportions when a few of their friends showed up. (“I didn’t invite them,” Natasha had insisted, and she was such a good liar that Bucky almost believed her.)

The problem with the combination of Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, Kate Bishop, Peter Quill and Scott Lang was that they were all maniacs in their own way and could be counted on to goad Bucky into bad decisions. Said bad decisions the previous evening included plenty of vodka, smoking a joint behind the bar with Quill, and (he was pretty sure this had happened, but not one hundred percent) making out with some random guy in the bathroom.

His head had hit the pillow around three in the morning, only to be rudely awakened by his alarm at six thirty. He’d briefly wished for the sweet relief of death before dragging himself out of bed and into the shower. He was out the door by seven, and he was pretty proud of himself for keeping his eyes open on the train. Orientation started at eight and he was _not_ going to be late again.

So, of course, he’d ended up in the conference room half an hour early instead, falling asleep in his chair and drinking said lukewarm coffee and eating said stale bagels. He’d been dead of boredom before the presentation even started, and now that they were going through the company’s organizational chart person by person he was pretty sure he’d been resurrected only to die again. Of extra double boredom.

“Tony Stark, our Senior Vice President of R&D,” the cheerful HR lady doing the presentation informed them. She’d introduced herself at the beginning, but Bucky had been half-asleep, so he’d decided her name was probably Carol, because of course it was. Probably-Carol was showing them a picture of Tony Stark, which seemed unnecessary since Tony Stark had been plastered across tabloids and society pages since he was sixteen years old.

“And our COO, Sam Wilson,” she continued, changing the slide. Sam Wilson looked like he was in the middle of telling a really bad joke to the photographer when the picture was taken.

Honestly, Bucky had to wonder why the hell they were spending so much time on introducing the senior executives. It wasn’t like he was going to be interacting with them. He was at the bottom of the ladder, and he’d probably spend more time talking to the delivery guy bringing the lunch orders than he ever would Sam Wilson or Tony Stark. The only one that might actually impact his life was James Rhodes, Maria’s boss.

“And if you’ve got a StarkPhone, you’ve got this next guy to thank, Steve Rogers, our Chief Design Officer,” probably-Carol chirped, swapping the slide to a picture of a guy with a...oh _shit_ that was elevator guy! Bucky nearly choked on his bagel as he straightened up in his seat, squinting at the picture. Yup, that was most definitely the cute guy that he’d screwed up royally in front of the day he’d had his interview. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. He felt his cheeks turning red, which was extra stupid because it wasn’t like this Steve Rogers person was going to remember him. He’d probably never even see him again. Nothing to worry about. He was just going to sit tight and wait for the benefits presentation, and he definitely wasn’t going to nap in his chair.

(When he woke up, probably-Carol was inviting them all to do a group introductory exercise. Fuck orientation.)

* * *

Mercifully, the day ended a little early, and Bucky was able to head home before the five o’clock rush, though the four forty-five rush was nothing to sneeze at. He happened to get stuck right behind a group of tourists walking five abreast and oohing and aahing over a department store window display. Sighing the way any good New Yorker would, he stepped into the street to go around them, deftly dodging a pile of garbage. _Probably_ they were going to go to Times Square to eat at the fucking Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, he decided. Because only tourists who walked five abreast in the middle of midtown during rush hour ate at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.

(And then they’d complain about how rude New Yorkers were, when in fact New Yorkers were some of the greatest people on earth, they were just tired and busy and wanted to get on their trains and _go home_ at the end of a long day. Slow tourists meant missing trains, and missing trains at this time of day meant that a thirty-minute commute could turn into an hour in the blink of an eye.)

Luckily, he managed to squeeze himself onto a train just as the doors were closing. The pungent and unique musk of humans fermenting in high summer was difficult to ignore, but he chose to breath through his mouth while turning up the volume on his music and reaching into his bag for his book. He had to change trains once, hopping onto a local at Atlantic Avenue, and he was home within twenty minutes, unlocking the three deadbolts Natasha had insisted on when they’d rented their tiny place.

The apartment was small, dingy and cramped, but it was Bucky’s favorite place in the world because living there meant he wasn’t living with his folks. Said folks were just a couple of stops away on the F train, but having some autonomy and independence meant everything to him. Plus, if he’d lived at home, two out of three of his kid sisters would be living there, too, so he wouldn’t have ever had peace or privacy.

Not that Natasha left him completely to his own devices. She was overly curious and liked to meddle in his love life, but she was his best friend so he tolerated it. They’d both been at SUNY Purchase for three years without actually knowing each other, as they’d been in different programs and had different groups of friends. A chance meeting at a party, however, had cemented the friendship that Bucky considered the most important relationship in his life.

She’d been the one to suggest they move to Brooklyn together after graduation. She’d done the legwork of finding the apartment and convincing Bucky he could afford it. Neither of them was in great financial shape, though Natasha cobbled a living together through fifty different jobs. Principally, she was a dancer with a modern dance troupe in the city. It was her passion, but the pay was terrible. So she supplemented it by teaching pilates and yoga to rich women on the Upper East Side and teaching basic ballet to their daughters. She also did some modeling for art schools, worked a catering gig on the weekends, and did grocery delivery when she could fit it in. She was taking advantage of the gig economy, which meant that her hours were unpredictable, so she wasn’t home when Bucky arrived at the apartment that night.

He debated cooking dinner, but he also figured that since he’d eaten twelve thousand bagels and eight thousand muffins over the course of the day he probably didn’t need anything else. Instead, he sat down with his laptop to ostensibly start a binge watch of something soothing on Netflix. Something _nice_.

Honestly, Googling Steve Rogers had seemed like a totally logical progression after an hour of The Great British Bake-Off.

Steve had a Wikipedia entry, which made sense since he was an Important Dude. When Bucky clicked on it he told himself that he’d do this for any of the senior executives at StarkTech, even the ones that weren’t cute, or the ones he’d never embarrassed himself in front of.

> _Steven Grant Rogers (born 4 July 1981) [1] is an American designer who is currently the chief design officer (CDO) of StarkTech and Vice Chairman of the board at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.[2][3] Rogers received an M.F.A. from the Brooklyn College of Art, where he was selected for an internship at StarkTech as part of their design group. [4] His work was noticed by then-CEO Tony Stark, who tasked Rogers with creating a set of sample designs for a prototype cellular device, which would later become known as the StarkPhone. [5] Rogers oversees the StarkTech Design Group. [6]_
> 
> _Rogers has received a number of awards for his work. In 2004 he was placed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. [7] In 2010 and 2014 he was the winner of the International Design Award’s Designer of the Year prize. [8] In addition to his professional accolades, Rogers has received notice for his charitable work, most notably in his involvement with LGBTQI youth charities. [9]_

Huh. That was interesting. It was nice that the guy was an advocate for queer causes because Bucky happened to support said causes himself, mostly because he’d been a LGBTQI youth, and now he was a LGBTQI adult. He was just glad that Steve was a supportive sort of guy. It wasn’t because it probably meant Steve Rogers had some sort of personal connection to the cause. That would be silly, considering that he was so far out of Bucky’s league that he might as well have been in another stratosphere.

Still, he scrolled down to the personal life section. Just because it was something to do and he was already on the page.

> _Rogers lives in New York City. He previously dated his StarkTech colleague, Margaret “Peggy” Carter.[90] He has since been linked to scientist Erik Lensherr [91] and attorney Matt Murdock.[92][93] though he is single as of late 2015. [94]_
> 
> _In a February 4, 2010 interview with The Guardian, Rogers stated he was bisexual, saying, “people want to attach labels to everything, so I guess if I’m labeling it, it’s bisexuality. If that helps someone figure out what they’re going through, and how to process their feelings, then I’m happy to do it.” [95]_

Huh. That was interesting. No more interesting than what any of the other senior executives did or didn’t do in their dating life, though. Because it would be weird if Bucky got a crush on his not-even-boss simply by virtue of the fact that he was bi and he hadn’t made Bucky feel like an idiot when he’d embarrassed himself in an elevator. That was most definitely not happening.

Oh, wait, yes it was.


	3. The Crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky ruminates on the nature of crushes before handling Steve's package.

The thing about having a crush was that once you decided you had the crush, you started seeing that person everywhere.

Bucky’s first crush had been on a kid named Tyler Miller in the seventh grade. That particular crush came alongside the not-so-surprising realization that he was into guys exclusively. Specifically, he was into Tyler and his floppy blond hair and his pretty green eyes. Bucky had spent hours in class sneaking surreptitious glances while Tyler asked stupid questions, flirted with every girl (because the girls were in much the same boat as Bucky), and tried to embarrass their teachers.

(Once, memorably, Tyler had been selected to read out loud from _Anne of Green Gables_ in English class. It happened to be the part of the book that included the line: _“Well, this is a pretty piece of business!" ejaculated Marilla._

Tyler had read it, solemnly, before looking at their teacher and asking, just as solemnly, what ejaculated meant.)

Tyler Miller had been kind of a dink, in retrospect.

Bucky’s taste in crushes had improved in college, though he tended to find that the guys he developed crushes on and the guys he dated were very different. He crushed on professors or unattainable graduate students and TAs, imbuing them with all the wit and intelligence of gods. He dated guys he met in class or awkward mixers, and the conversation was never as scintillating in reality as he imagined it would be with the other objects of his infatuation. Crushes were for projecting all one’s hopes and dreams, while reality involved a lot more awkward handjobs in the parking lot of The Cheesecake Factory.

Since college, he hadn’t had any crushes or dates because making out in bars and bathrooms wasn’t the same thing as having an actual personal life. He was on a couple of apps, at Natasha’s insistence, but he hated them all. It felt impersonal, somehow, or way too personal when certain people started asking him about the size of his dick before they asked his first name. When he did go on first dates, they were just as stilted and awkward as his dates in college. Most of them didn’t result in second dates and those that did petered out somewhere between the third and the fifth. Bucky tried not to spend too much time thinking about how bad he was at commitment; it was easier to project everything onto the unattainable goal of Steve Rogers, the perfect crush.

Steve’s existence and the ability to fantasize about his particular brand of handsomeness was a nice perk of working at StarkTech, but Bucky found himself pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind more and more often as he settled in at work. He liked his job, and a month and a half into his tenure he found he was pretty good at it. Maria was a fair boss, and she’d forgiven him the few early mistakes he’d made. She was also quick to thank him when he’d done well, and she wasn’t afraid to push him to do better.

His coworkers were great, too, for the most part. There were about fifty people in the division, but he only interacted with a few of them on a regular basis. He shared a pod (which was the _stupidest_ name for a two desk setup he’d ever heard) with a woman named Wanda Maximoff. She handled a lot of the company’s day-to-day PR on social media, as well as being one of the on-call public affairs officers. She had a dry sense of humor that was perfectly in sync with Bucky’s, and they’d developed an easy shared rapport. Brock Rumlow was Wanda’s boss, and Bucky privately thought he was kind of overbearing and obnoxious, but he wasn’t going to say that out loud. Brock was an anomaly in that he’d been hired in externally rather than being promoted from within, which was a rarity at StarkTech. So, Bucky reasoned, he must have been good if they’d hired him over an internal applicant.

Then there was America Chavez, the intern he’d met on the day he interviewed, who was unfortunately only going to be with them through the end of the summer. She was optimistic that she’d be hired on once she finished her senior year, and Bucky hoped that it worked out because he liked her a lot. Finally, Bucky had gotten to know Peter Parker, the staff photographer. With companies cutting full-time photography positions left and right, Peter was just grateful to have a job with insurance. He was kept around mostly for corporate headshots and getting grip’n’grin party pictures at the big functions. Bucky supposed it made sense, as the company hired big name photographers for their marketing campaigns, so they only needed Peter for the small stuff. Still, his new friend was talented, and he’d confided in Bucky that on nights and weekends he liked to do a little urban spelunking, sneaking into abandoned buildings and getting up to the roofs so he could shoot the city from a unique vantage point.

Overall, Bucky felt good about work. He had nice colleagues, he was on top of his game, and he hadn’t embarrassed himself thoroughly since that very first day. So obviously the other shoe had to drop. The drop happened on a Wednesday when Bucky walked into a conference room with Maria, ready to take notes, and found Steve Rogers already there, thumbing through something on his phone. Damn it. Maria had said they were going to a meeting, not a _meeting with Steve Rogers_. (But then, he supposed, Maria wasn’t exactly aware that he was in-crush with Steve Rogers, so he couldn’t really blame her.)

“Steve,” she greeted, as the man got to his feet. Shit, he was so tall. Bucky had known he was tall, of course, he’d remembered it from the elevator. But he was the kind of tall that made Bucky a little weak in the knees. Plus he was filling out his suit impeccably, which made Bucky feel like even more of a complete schlub in his ill-fitting suit pants and button-down.

“Maria, hi,” Steve greeted, before glancing at Bucky.

“This is my new assistant,” Maria said, bringing Bucky into the conversation with an arm gesture. “James Barnes.”

“Hi, James,” Steve said, extending a hand, at the same time Bucky spoke over him, babbling, “it’s nice to see you again, Steve.”

Shit. Mother of shit. Mother shitting shit.

Steve, to his credit, took it in stride and smiled as he shook Bucky’s hand firmly. “I wasn’t aware we’d met. I apologize - I can be so bad with faces.”

“Uh, we didn’t meet, exactly?” He offered, glancing at Maria. “I was...you were in the elevator, and I was late for my interview, and you told me it didn’t go to the floor I needed?”

If Steve was surprised that Bucky remembered the interaction so vividly, he didn’t show it. Instead, his smile widened, and he actually laughed a little bit. (Jesus, he had a great laugh, and a great smile, and a great face. The best face.) “I remember now,” he said. “You look different when you’re not panicking.”

Bucky was pretty sure it wasn’t possible to die of embarrassment, but he wasn’t one hundred _percent_ sure.

“Uh...yeah,” he agreed. Which was definitely the suavest thing that had ever come out of his mouth. Ever.

“Well, James,” Steve continued. “I’m pleased the interview went well. Welcome to StarkTech.” His name sounded perfect coming out of Steve’s mouth, even if it was a name nobody outside of StarkTech ever used. But god damn it, he was an _adult_ with an _adult_ job and an _adult_ name and nobody in this building was ever going to call him Bucky.

“Thanks, Mr. Ro...uh, Steve,” he replied, since nobody used formal titles.

Bucky was saved from any further scrutiny by the doors opening again and more people filling the room. He took the opportunity to slink to a chair in the corner, getting his notepad ready while the Very Important People took their places around the conference table.

The meeting was about Top Secret Stuff, he was pretty sure, as they began discussing how to handle a recent story that had come out about a rival organization’s CEO, a guy named Alexander Pierce. Pierce had landed a contract that StarkTech had thought was pretty much done and dusted for them - namely, a contract for a particular component that was going to be crucial in the next iteration of the StarkPhone. Peggy Carter, the Chief Corporate Security Officer, seemed concerned that there had been a data breach which allowed Pierce to access the information about the potential partnership. Bucky listened to her, scratching out notes and deciding she was a lot more intimidating in person. (Not that he’d spent twenty minutes looking her up online after finding out she had _dated Steve_.)

StarkTech’s general counsel, another terrifyingly intimidating woman named Jeri Hogarth went over the legal options; ultimately, nobody could sue anybody, and they were going to have to fight it out in the press. Which explained why Maria and James Rhodes (known around the office as Rhodey, Bucky had discovered) were in the room  - this was apparently a meeting to create a calculated response.

Bucky had to admit, even with Steve in the room, he was thrilled to have the opportunity to watch and learn from some of the most talented people in his industry. They had the beginnings of a plan in place by the time the meeting ended, and Maria indulged Bucky as he peppered her with questions on the way back to their floor about why they did certain things a certain way.

The best thing about the plan, though, was that it involved Steve.

(Which meant that the whole ‘never seeing Steve Rogers’ thing was right out the window.)

Suddenly, Steve was on the thirty-fourth floor a lot, in closed-door meetings with Rhodey and Maria or stepping into the on-site studio to give radio or TV interviews. He always acknowledged Bucky with a smile or a nod, which made sense, given that Steve was a Very Nice Person and Bucky’s desk was directly outside Maria’s door.

The campaign had been going on for about three weeks when Maria came over to drop a sealed envelope on Bucky’s desk. “I need you to bring this up to Steve's office,” she said. “I don’t want to use the courier.”

That was interesting. They had a guy who did mail runs between departments, so something that needed to be hand-delivered meant that Maria didn’t trust it to email, nor did she trust it to a third party. Of course, any crowing Bucky might have done about the fact that Maria trusted him was negated by the fact that he had to go to Steve’s _office._

“Uh okay,” he nodded. “Sure thing, um, what floor?”

“Design’s on eighty,” she replied. “Don’t forget your badge, they have to scan it.”

Security on the design and R&D floors was tight for a reason, Bucky supposed, and it had only gotten more intense since the suspected breach. He’d figured out the elevator system by then. It wasn’t exactly the most convenient thing in the world to ride down to one, cross the lobby, and get on from the other side, but it did give him the opportunity to work up a true and genuine panic about going into Steve’s office.

Getting off the elevator onto the design floor was like stepping into another world. It was all gleaming white and chrome, full of people doing everything from screwing around with virtual reality goggles to working out really complicated UX details on giant whiteboards. It was a playground for geeks, as opposed to the Public Relations floor which was like a newsroom for sellouts (as Maria was fond of saying). The people on this floor seemed very zen, while Bucky’s people were more anxiety-driven and neurotic.

In other words: he was out of his depth.

Steve’s assistant (a super chill guy named Danny) was happy to call back to his boss before sending Bucky into Steve’s office. Said office took up an entire corner of the building and didn’t have the same frosted glass that was omnipresent in every other closed-door office he’d seen. Steve, apparently, got to have real privacy. Then again, considering the money he’d made StarkTech over the years, Bucky supposed Steve could get whatever he wanted.

“Uh, hi,” he said, knocking on the doorframe. Steve had good taste. His office was well-lit, with a big, sleek, dark wood desk dominating one end. The rest of it contained some plush looking sofas and armchairs, as well as a four-person conference table. Steve himself was seated on one of the sofas with what appeared to be pencil sketches laid out on the table in front of him.

“James, hi,” he greeted, hopping up from the couch. Wow. He looked really, really good. He’d taken his omnipresent suit jacket off and loosened his tie. Bucky could tell he’d been pushing a hand through his hair because it was just the slightest bit mussed, which made him think about sex and possibly being bent over the end of that sleek desk...

Steve’s voice cut through the noise, interrupting Bucky’s wandering thoughts. “Are those from Maria? Great, thank you.”

Bucky realized he hadn’t actually spoken yet, and that staring at Steve’s hair was not the most normal thing he could be doing. “Um, yeah, she uh...she didn’t want to use the courier.”

“Huh,” Steve laughed. “Guess she must trust you. That’s good - she’s tough.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, nodding his head before realizing how that sounded. “I mean, no, she’s...she’s tough, but she’s an excellent boss. I’m learning a lot.”

Steve smiled a bit at that, going to toss the envelope onto his pile of sketches. “That’s good,” he repeated, smiling again. “What’s your background?”

Yeah, Bucky was pretty sure Steve Rogers had just asked him a personal question and then his brain had short-circuited. But it was likely just a professional courtesy because he was Steve, and he was nice. “Oh, uh, I graduated from Purchase a year and a bit ago, communications degree. I was working in uh...the food services industry before I got this job.”

(The food services industry. Jesus H. Christ, Barnes.)

“Purchase is a wonderful school,” Steve replied, leaning against the back of a sofa and nodding. “I did some work with their art and design program a couple years ago.”

‘Some work’ was an understatement. What Steve had actually done was fund an endowed chair, but Bucky wasn’t going to let on that he knew that, because the only reason he knew was from the weird Google rabbit holes he kept going down about Steve. So instead, he nodded and blurted, “cool!”

“Yeah,” Steve said, nodding his head again. “I’m sure you’ve been getting plenty of people asking you about your background since you started - par for the course with the new folks. I know Maria’s sure glad to have you. She’s good about promoting assistants, so keep up the good work and you’ll do well here.”

(Okay, so Steve Rogers definitely talked like someone’s well-meaning grandfather. Bucky was pretty sure he shouldn’t be into that. And yet, there they were.)

“Oh, that would be...I mean, I hope so,” he agreed. “We’ll see, I guess. I’m learning a lot. I mean...I already said that, sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Steve said immediately, smiling a little. “I won’t keep you here and torture you with awkward small-talk, I’m sure Maria has plenty for you to do. Thank you again for the package.”

“That’s...uh, you’re welcome,” Bucky replied, before making his less-than-graceful exit from the office.

Well, he reasoned as he stepped onto the elevator to head back down, of the three conversations he’d ever had with Steve Rogers, that had been the least disastrous. It was progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a visual person, so I wanted to include some a link to how I envision [Steve's office](https://imgur.com/a/x9NRH). Imagine the desk setup in the first image, with the layout/sofas from the second image.
> 
> Also, if you're interested in hanging out on Tumblr, I'm at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/) over there, too.


	4. Gus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes on a date. It's 83% less awkward than he expects it to be.

The whole ‘first date’ thing was Natasha’s fault. Well, it was Bucky’s fault for letting Natasha have his phone in the first place. She’d commandeered it one night at the bar, diving into his Grindr profile to start swiping right on anyone she deemed “hot enough” and “blond enough.” Bucky had to admit, she knew his type.

She’d been the one to find Gus, whose profile ticked a few of Bucky’s very particular preferences. Gus was single, he was interested in dating as opposed to hooking up, he preferred to top, and his profile picture was neither of his torso nor a bathroom mirror selfie. All in all, Gus seemed fine.

(Although his name sounded like a plucky orphan in a 1930s comic book. Or Gus-Gus, the mouse from _Cinderella_.)

Gus and Bucky had started swapping messages, with Gus none the wiser to the fact their first few interactions had actually been Natasha doing her best Bucky impersonation. Natasha’s version of Bucky tended to be a lot flirtier and a much better speller, but if Gus noticed the change, he never said anything.

Natasha had also been the one to force Bucky to actually request a date, because if he’d had his way they would have kept exchanging nice-but-ultimately-meaningless text messages forever. Or until one of them got bored. “Go, Yasha,” she’d commanded, unyielding in the face of all his protests.

So the two of them had arranged to meet for drinks at Benny’s Burritos in the Village on a Thursday night. Bucky reasoned that even if the date went to shit, he’d still get to drink a couple margaritas and take home a giant burrito.

It was pushing into mid-October, and the air had a little bit of a chill to it when he got off the train. When he arrived at the restaurant, he was pleased to see that Gus was already waiting for him, or at least he was pretty sure that was the same guy as the Grindr profile.

“Hey,” he said as he approached. “Gus?”

Gus looked relieved when Bucky spoke first, and he smiled, stepping forward and offering his hand. He was a little taller than Bucky (though not as tall as _some_ people), and he had a firm handshake. First impressions weren’t everything, but he at least looked like his picture. “Yeah, hi, nice to meet you. It’s...is Bucky really your name?”

Not a great start to the conversation there, Gus-Gus, but he couldn’t _really_ fault the guy considering that Natasha had made the introduction, and she’d introduced him as Bucky. Natasha loved that his name was Bucky because nicknames and pet names were apparently a Big Deal for her. He wasn’t sure if it was a Russian thing or a Natasha thing, but he knew that within days of meeting her she’d taken James, turned it into Yakov, then almost immediately started calling him Yasha. (That name, however, was now reserved for Natasha alone, and woe to any other human who ever attempted to use the diminutive on Bucky.)

“Uh…” he laughed, shrugging as they turned to head inside the restaurant. “Sort of. It’s actually James, but Buchanan’s my middle name, and when I was little I couldn’t say it right, so I’d call myself Bucky and...it stuck.”

“Ah,” Gus nodded as they waited their turn for the hostess. “Well, Gus is short for August.”

“Cool.” Ugh.

Luckily, the hostess cut short what was most definitely going to be an awkward silence as she led them to a table by the window overlooking Greenwich Avenue. At least that would make for good people watching if the conversation went south again.

(“You always do this!” the Natasha that lived in his head complained. “You set the date up for failure before you even get started!”)

“So how was your day?” Gus asked as they sat, menus already on the table in front of them.

“Good,” Bucky said. “Long. I work at StarkTech, so it’s always...there’s always something going on.”

“Oh cool, what do you do there?”

“I’m in Public Relations,” he replied. “I just started a few months ago, though, so I’m still kind of getting my feet wet. How about you?”

Gus, as it turned out, was a law student at NYU, which meant he was really smart. He wanted to do environmental law, he explained, but with the amount of student loan debt he was going to be shouldering he was pretty sure he’d have to work corporate for a few years before he was able to go the non-profit route. Bucky found himself asking some questions and, amazingly, holding a conversation with the guy.

(It didn’t hurt that Gus was cute. Not _Steve Rogers_ cute or anything, but he had kind eyes and a little bit of scruff as well as some curly blonde hair that Bucky could almost envision running his fingers through.)

The waiter interrupted them eventually, and they ordered drinks (a frozen grande guava mango swirl margarita for Bucky, because he could, and a Victoria for Gus). When the waiter came back with their drinks and asked if they wanted food, Bucky resisted the typical urge to demur and had a fight with his inner Natasha instead.

(“If you don’t order food, it gives you an excuse to leave early. As usual.”

“But what if I need to leave early? What if he gets weird?! What if I hate him? I might hate him! I don’t currently, but it could happen at. Any. Time.”

“Order a fucking burrito, Barnes.”)

So, he did. A picadillo burrito, as a matter of fact, while Gus went with a vegan seitan option. Which: gross. But whatever, Bucky didn’t have to eat it.

As they waited for the food to come, Bucky discovered that he didn’t hate Gus at all. In fact, he kind of liked him. He was funny, and he had good stories about growing up in South Carolina, including one about the first guy he’d ever kissed being a preacher’s son.

“So the literal son of a preacher man?” Bucky smirked.

“Pretty much,” Gus replied, reaching for his beer.

Bucky found himself opening up in return. He talked about growing up with three sisters and having to share a bathroom with all of them and a bedroom with one of them. He bemoaned how he’d coasted through high school on charm and athletic ability, and how he wished he’d applied himself a little bit more. He told the story of his own first kiss, hiding in the locker room while skipping gym class with Benny Feinberg. Bucky was not Benny’s first kiss, and his lingering memory of the experience was of Benny immediately shoving his tongue into the far recesses of Bucky’s mouth. At the time, he’d been struck by a mental image of a mother bird regurgitating food into the throat of her young, which had been neither sexy nor fun. It did make Gus laugh, though.  

“I’ve had this total paranoia that I’m a really shitty kisser because my first one was so bad,” Bucky admitted. “Like, I never learned how to do it right, and now I’m too old to ask for remedial lessons.”

“Huh,” Gus smiled, biting his lip. “We’ll see.”

(“Get it, Gus!”

“Shut the fuck up, Natasha!”)

Ultimately, the date lasted for three margaritas and half of Bucky’s burrito (the other half neatly boxed up for lunch at work the next day). It was the longest and by far the most successful date he’d had since moving back to Brooklyn. Even the bill wasn’t awkward, as Gus immediately suggested they split it down the middle and Bucky agreed.

Once the check was done and dusted, Bucky stuck his leftovers in his messenger bag and pulled on his jacket. They walked outside shoulder-to-shoulder, which was nice. “Can I...walk you to the subway?” Gus asked.

“Sure,” Bucky said, and his inner panic was nearly completely quelled by then.

The easiest route home started at West 4th Street, which wasn't far. As a matter of fact, he found the walk was over all too soon when they approached the station entrance.

“So um...this was fun,” Bucky offered, glancing over at Gus to check his reaction.

“It was fun,” Gus agreed with a nod, meeting Bucky's eyes and smiling. “Would you want to do it again sometime?”

“Sure,” Bucky said with a smile, only hesitating for a second. “That’d be great, actually. You have my number?”

“I have your number.”

“Then we’ll figure something out,” he said. “Have a good night.”

“Have a good night,” Gus echoed. Bucky had just turned away when he felt a touch on his elbow. Looking back, he was pulled into an easy kiss. It was a little forward, maybe, and a lot unexpected, but he found that he didn’t actually mind. Maybe it was because he was tipsy or maybe it was the fact that he was kind of into this guy, but he was giddy over the impromptu attention. Honestly, it felt pretty damn romantic. Gus was a good kisser, keeping it light and playful before pulling back to rest his forehead against Bucky’s. “You…” Gus began, laughing a little bit. “Are not a remedial kisser.”

* * *

“So?”

Bucky heard Natasha before he saw her when he pushed open the door to the apartment. It took him a second to locate her practicing a headstand against the opposite wall (because apparently doing yoga with rich ladies all day wasn’t enough, she had to practice her form at home, too).

“So...it was fine,” he replied, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it up on the hook by the door. Crossing the two steps to the kitchen, he opened up the fridge to deposit his leftovers.

“Fine?” Nat echoed, pushing away from the wall and getting to her feet. Somehow she managed to look practically perfect in spite of having recently been inverted, her red curls bouncing flawlessly back into place.

“Would you just…” he began, shaking his head and smiling in spite of himself.

“Oh my God, it was _good_!” she exclaimed, grinning in that way that meant she felt personally victorious. “Yasha!”

“Yes, it was good!” Bucky agreed, pulling a beer out and shutting the fridge. “He’s a good guy. You picked a winner, Nat, would you like a cookie?”

“Don’t be a sore loser,” she replied with a grin as she flopped down rather dramatically onto the couch. “And yes, of course I would like a cookie. Please bring me one. And one of those boozy seltzer things.”

Bucky complied, because he was hard-pressed to deny Natasha anything in the world, even when she used his lap as a footrest and asked him very personal questions about how his evening had gone. This was mostly because Natasha was actually a very good friend who enthusiastically supported all of Bucky’s choices, so long as she felt they were in his best interest.

She also happened to be a great listener who offered timely and appropriate commentary to Bucky’s stories.

“The fact that he didn’t walk out when you ordered that speaks volumes about his character,” came her response when Bucky waxed rhapsodic about his margarita choice.

“A gentleman and a scholar!” she exclaimed upon finding out Gus was in law school.

“Oooh, a _southern_ gentleman and a scholar,” she amended a few moments later.

The buildup to the kiss had her falling all over herself, and when Bucky admitted that he had kind of liked it, she punched him in the arm before pumping her fists over her head. “I told you! I knew you’d like him. Way better than your skeezy bar guys.”

“I don’t date skeezy bar guys!”

“No shit, you hook up with them in the bathrooms, and they leave you hanging, and then _everyone can see your boner_.”

“Na- _tash_ -aaaaa!”

“Well, they can! Quill didn’t shut up about it for a week! I think he was jealous,” she smirked.

“Oh my God.”

“Look, all I’m saying is that he seems like a nice guy, and you deserve a nice guy,” she said with a shrug. “And you didn’t self-sabotage this one so, you know, you might actually like him.”

“I do actually like him,” Bucky replied, a touch grumpily.

“Then go text him,” she prompted. “And tell him so.”

So, Bucky did.

(And he didn’t even check his Google Alerts for Steve Rogers _once_ before going to bed that night. But he did check them first thing in the morning. He was only human.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise there will be more Steve and Bucky interaction to come - this is a slow burn but not the _slowest_ burn. 
> 
> Here's how I [envision Gus](https://i.imgur.com/Aei4U4m.jpg) (Freddie Stroma aka Dickon Tarly original flavor). He's no Steve Rogers, but he's close enough if Bucky squints. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has been leaving such kind comments! It's motivating me to write at breakneck speed. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep this up forever, but at the moment I'm having so much fun with this story. (As a side note, I haven't written fanfiction since high school, and I'd forgotten how much fun it can be!)
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [notlucy.tumblr.com](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/). Thanks again for reading!


	5. Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time marches on, and Bucky finds out how StarkTech celebrates Halloween. Also, there is pie.

> _Employee Celebration Event! Join your colleagues for some thrills and chills at StarkTech’s Seventh Annual Halloween Spook-tacular! Apple cider, door prizes, lunch provided! Monday, October 31 from 12-2 in the courtyard._

“What. The fuck. Is this.” Bucky knew he didn’t need to elaborate, as Wanda would have just received the exact same email.

“Hmm?” she replied, clicking to her inbox before snorting. “Oh. It’s uh...I should warn you, HR really gets into the holidays around here. They think it’ll boost morale.”

“Wanda. Please no.”

“It’s not _mandatory,”_ she replied, spinning her chair to face Bucky. “But the food’s pretty good, and all the executives have to wear costumes to make them seem accessible and relatable. It’s wonderfully embarrassing for them all because they also have to serve the food. I guess it’s supposed to make us forget that they make millions of dollars more than we do. I went last year, and you know Thor, the marketing guy?”

Bucky did know Thor. Or, at least, he’d seen Thor in passing and wondered briefly why the guy wasn’t making a living as an underwear model in Sweden.

“Uh huh.”

“He went as a Viking. Super elaborate. Very attractive.”

“Huh. I...could be persuaded.”

“You’re so predictable, James,” Wanda teased. “Anyway, I’m going for the costumes alone. Sam Wilson from HR makes them all do it, and some people go all out. I think he must have won a bet or something, though, because even Tony Stark has to dress up.”

Ultimately, two hours of freedom from work plus the chance to see Steve (and Thor, if he was honest) in a costume convinced Bucky that it wasn’t the worst idea in the world. Two seconds after setting foot into the courtyard, though, he was reconsidering.

“Guys, these people are so...chipper,” he complained.

“What’s wrong with chipper?” Peter asked, sounding a little hurt as Wanda rolled her eyes and took Bucky’s arm, “oh my god, you’re such a cynic! Come on, let’s go get a hot dog. They had really good tofu dogs last year!” (Because between Gus and Wanda, Bucky was just _surrounding_ himself with vegetarians these days.)

There was a very loose harvest theme going on, and true to Wanda’s promise, the most senior of senior executives were all dressed in varying degrees of costume, some more elaborate than others. Sam Wilson, for example, had gone all out in a cowboy get up, replete with a fringed vest and spurs. Pepper Potts looked amazing in a Mrs. Mia Wallace costume, while Tony Stark handed out candy apples in a Superman t-shirt under an unbuttoned three-piece suit. It was, in the loosest sense of the word, a costume. Tony also looked as though he would rather be dead than standing behind that table.

Bucky couldn’t blame him.

Wanda pulled him into the hot dog line, and he craned his neck to see which poor schmo was serving. He knew Rhodey was out there somewhere, but the guy at the end of his line was...oh. Steve. In a very soft looking blue sweater. A sweater which, to Bucky’s eye, wasn’t really a costume, either. However, he wasn’t going to argue because Steve looked absolutely snuggable.

(Snuggable. What the fuck. That wasn’t a word.)

Unlike Tony, Steve was taking the time to talk to the people coming through his line. He was at least paying lip service to the reason why the executives were forced into this little song-and-dance. Steve looked up and smiled as Bucky, Wanda, and Peter approached. Genuinely smiled, Bucky was pretty sure, though he might have been projecting a bit.

“James, hi,” Steve greeted warmly, as though Bucky were his very dearest old friend whom he hadn’t seen in fifty years.

“Hey,” Bucky replied, in what was supposed to be his normal voice, but actually came out a little higher pitched than that. The universe was just not ever going to let him be remotely cool in front of Steve Rogers. “Um...I thought you guys had to wear a costume?”

That made Steve laugh, and he glanced down at his sweater. He was also wearing, Bucky now realized, khakis and Keds. “Yeah, nobody’s getting it,” Steve said sheepishly. “I’m uh...Mr. Rogers? Because...well, you know.” Holy shit, he was actually going a little bit red. Steve Rogers! Embarrassed! Bucky had to give a point back to the universe because that was the best thing to happen to him all day.

“Oh!” he laughed. “Right. I just didn’t realize because, you know, the real Mr. Rogers didn’t have a beard.”

(Never fucking mind, universe.)

“That’s true,” Steve agreed, and Bucky didn’t care that he was holding up the line, not even a little. “I probably should have shaved for authenticity.”

“No!” Bucky exclaimed before he could help himself, which caused Steve to raise an eyebrow and Wanda to snort. “I mean uh...you shouldn’t shave for...it’s not...it’s just a silly party. Can I get a hot dog?”

Steve was a little slow to respond, but he recovered and nodded. “Sure, hot dogs for all three of you?”

“Tofu dog for me, please,” Wanda replied.

“Coming right up,” Steve said, getting each of them a plate.

They were twenty feet away from the line when Wanda elbowed Bucky in the side. “Oh my God, could you be any more in love with him?”

“What?!” Bucky yelped, glancing around before shushing her. “I’m not...I mean, he’s...it’s _Steve Rogers_.”

Peter was watching the two of them with interest as Wanda steered them to an open table. “Oh come on,” she continued. “You get all weird every time he comes by your desk, and you always sit like you’ve got a stick up your ass when he’s in a meeting with Maria or Rhodey.”

He opened his mouth to protest when Peter piped up. “You kind of do, man.”

Bucky had no idea what to say to that, so he settled on the most petulant and whiny response because he felt he deserved it. “Well fuck, does _everyone_ know?”

“No,” Wanda replied with a shrug. “Only me, because I see you all the time, and Peter because he’s a very observant friend. Nobody else cares that much about who you have a crush on. I don’t even care that much, but it’s funny watching you face plant in front of him.”

“Thanks, Maximoff.”

“You’re very welcome. Anyway, I think it’s cute.”

“It’s not _cute_.” Bucky was very sure he was a lot of things, but cute was not one of them. He was a very good looking and serious person. “Anyway, it’s...he’s handsome, that’s all. And he’s nice. It’s nothing.”

“Well of course it’s nothing,” Wanda said, because tact wasn’t always her strong suit. “He’s like...your boss’ boss’ colleague and he practically runs half this company. No offense, but it’s not going to happen.”

“None taken, actually,” Bucky replied, picking up his hot dog. “Besides, I’m already dating someone. Steve’s just nice to look at.” He took a bite of his food, resolutely not making eye contact with either Peter or Wanda.

“I don’t know,” Peter said after a moment of silence. “It wouldn’t be the _weirdest_ thing to ever happen. Look at Wade and me.”

Bucky had only met Peter’s husband once, briefly, at a happy hour. If he’d had to pick the kind of guy he’d expect Peter to go for, Wade wouldn’t have been on the list. The guy seemed hard and sarcastic. Additionally, as a veteran with third degree burn scars covering a significant portion of his body, Wade was a touch bitter about the world and its inhabitants while Peter was one of the most optimistic people Bucky knew. Yet, watching them together, Bucky had been struck by just how well they fit. It had been sweet, and (shockingly) aspirational.

“That’s true,” Wanda replied. “Maybe you do have a shot. You should go ask him about his beard again.”

“Oh come on…” Bucky replied as she started to laugh. The conversation moved on from Steve after another few ribs at Bucky’s expense, and he tried not to think about Peter’s encouragement. Instead, he focused on his friends and just how close the vein in Tony Stark’s forehead was to bursting when the three of them went up for candy apples.

* * *

Three weeks later, Bucky was at his parents’ place for Thanksgiving. They’d eaten around four o’clock before watching Disney movies as a family. Then there had been pie, followed by everyone going to bed except Bucky and his oldest sister Rebecca. Becca was home from Rutgers for the long weekend, and she had been relentlessly bothering Bucky about watching the _Gilmore Girls_ revival with her, mostly because he was the only other member of the family who loved the show.

“You get the remote,” Bucky pleaded with her because he was still too full of pie and therefore couldn’t move.

“Noooooooope,” Becca replied, doing her best Lana Kane impression as she flailed in place from her prone position next to Bucky on the sofa.

“Fine,” Bucky said, groaning as he leaned up to grab the remote control from the coffee table. He flipped the TV on and sighed before deftly undoing the top button of his jeans. Skinny jeans on Thanksgiving? He was officially the stupidest person alive.

His phone buzzed about ten minutes into the show with a text from Gus that consisted mostly of food, death, and booze emojis.

 _Ditto,_ Bucky sent back, alongside a gif of the guy exploding in Meaning of Life. As it turned out, he and Gus had a shared affinity for gross-out humor.

They kept exchanging texts until Becca noticed. She nudged Bucky with a smirk and paused the show on a rather unflattering screenshot of Alexis Bledel. “Who are you texting, Binky?”

“Could you not, Chewbecca?” Bucky replied. He wasn’t the only one with a stupid childhood nickname (though he found it unfair that Becca’s inability to say Bucky as a little kid had resulted in an even more ridiculous moniker). “And I am texting someone you don’t know.”

“Like...a boy?” she said, attempting to get a look at his phone.

“Maybe. None of your business.”

“Do you have a _boyfriend,_ Binky?!” she exclaimed.

“I do not,” Bucky replied, shielding his phone. “I have a seventh date on Monday. Not a boyfriend.”

Becca was quiet for a minute, mulling that information over. “Can I see a picture?” she asked.

Bucky debated not showing her but decided he was too full of pie to deal with the physical altercation that would ensue if he refused. “Sure,” he shrugged, going into his pictures to find the screenshot he’d saved of Gus’ Grindr profile.

“Oooh, he’s cute. He’s too cute for you. You ate like four pies tonight, you don’t deserve human companionship.”

“Speak for yourself, dude!” Bucky laughed. “You went apeshit on mom’s stuffing.”

“I am in _college,_ and I haven’t eaten real food in _three months_!” she protested, indignant, before going back to staring at the picture. “Anyway, he is super cute. Do you like him?”

“I...do like him,” Bucky said, with just a bit of hesitation. “He’s a lot of fun.” And that was true. Gus was a lot of fun. They’d had some good dates, and they flirted a lot through text. Bucky had also been back to his apartment once for what turned out to be some good old-fashioned hand job action. Dating Gus was great, really, but ever since Halloween, his crush on Steve had gotten worse. Lately, he found himself negatively comparing Gus to what was unattainable at every turn.

“Wow, what a ringing endorsement, Buck,” Becca said with a smirk. “Don’t hold back.”

“Shut up,” he laughed, nudging her. “I just mean that he’s not...it’s not like I’m in love with him. He’s nice. I’m twenty-three, who gives a shit if it’s just fun?”

“I guess,” she agreed, glancing over at him. “But you know, it’s okay to want something more than fun.”

“You sound like Natasha,” he grumbled, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Good, Natasha’s awesome.”

“Can we just watch the show again, please? I’m digesting, and I can’t do that when I’m talking about my love life.”

“Fine, cop-out,” Becca replied, shaking her head and reaching across him to hit play. “But you need to keep me appraised of these things. Just because I’m away at school doesn’t mean I don’t care, Binky.”

Bucky grunted, crossing his arms over his chest as the show started up again. He didn’t need his baby sister butting into his love life any more than he needed Natasha’s help. And yet, it was nice to have people around who wanted the best for him, even if he didn’t actually know what the best for him was. Whatever, he’d get them both something nice for Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the Christmas party. Things will happen! 
> 
> Thank you again to my regular commenters - I can't get over how great y'all are. 
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [notlucy.tumblr.com](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/).


	6. Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky attends StarkTech's annual holiday party, where there is an open bar, a live band, and a handsome man in a navy blue suit.

Wanda hadn’t been kidding about StarkTech taking holidays seriously. From the Halloween Spooktacular to the Thanksgiving food drive to the General December Holiday Charity Extravaganza, they went all out. Bucky appreciated the fact that there were ample opportunities for employees to participate in various charitable efforts, from fundraising to volunteering.

(He took advantage of the volunteer opportunities unselfishly and with an eye towards his fellow man. He definitely didn’t sign up for things based on which activities Steve was leading, because that would have been weird.)

According to Wanda, however, the real December pièce de résistance was the annual holiday party. No expense was spared, and employees were encouraged to eat, drink, and be _very_ merry on the last Friday evening before the holiday break. Spouses and significant others were allowed to attend, but children were strictly forbidden due to the sheer amount of alcohol that would be flowing.

The whole ‘significant other’ thing was a point of consternation for Bucky because he wasn’t quite sure _what_ he and Gus were. They’d been dating for two months, and while Bucky wasn’t seeing anyone else, he also wouldn’t really consider Gus his boyfriend. Their schedules were wildly divergent, and they only saw one another twice a week at best. It was fine, it was fun, and Bucky was officially Getting Laid as of December 2nd. Despite all of that, it just didn’t feel like it was serious enough to warrant a holiday party invite.

So he asked Natasha instead.

Natasha, bless her, had agreed, and she met Bucky in the lobby of StarkTech looking like a million bucks in a green cocktail dress with a plunging neckline, her curls swept up into an effortlessly sleek chignon. He was about five minutes late meeting her, thanks to a last minute issue with stupid Rumlow, so he felt guilty when he walked into the lobby and saw her sitting on one of the benches, playing with her phone. She got to her feet quickly when Bucky called her name, and he gave her a quick once over.

“Wow,” he said, whistling as he took her in. “Tasha, that dress…”

“I know,” she replied, never one for false modesty. “You look nice, too. How far is this place?”

The ‘place’ was a venue about half a mile away which had been rented out for the occasion (apparently having the holiday party in their own building was the height of gauche).

“Not that far. You should probably put your coat on, though,” he replied. He had his own coat on over his interview suit, which he’d worn for the party because it was the only one he owned and Wanda had warned him the shindig was fancy.

It was a bitterly cold night for December, and Bucky didn’t envy Natasha her bare legs as they walked. She seemed oblivious to it, though, holding onto his arm and ignoring the looks she got from nearly every person who passed them by. Natasha was the kind of beautiful that drew stares, and while she was never cruel or callous about it she’d learned to tune out the attention over the years.

The venue for the StarkTech party was luxe, of course, and in the center of Times Square (aka hell). Typically Bucky avoided Times Square like any other self-respecting New Yorker, but swanning past all the tourists with Natasha on his arm was actually pretty great. Their names were checked against a list and they headed into the lobby of the venue, where they dropped their coats at the coat check, and Natasha put their claim stubs in her clutch.

“I’m keeping them because you’ll get drunk and lose them,” she said wryly.

“I would never...oh, a bar,” Bucky replied, steering them towards the first one he saw, just inside the entrance to the event space. It was only after he had one of the evening’s signature cocktails in hand (a cranberry ginger Moscow mule) that he could fully appreciate the work that had gone into the party. The room was decorated in shades of blue, white and silver, with a giant crystal tree dominating everything. There were tall tables for people to gather around, as well as a dance floor and a live band on the stage. “Wow,” he said, glancing at Natasha to get her reaction. (He wasn’t sure why he bothered because nothing had ever impressed Natasha Romanov and he was pretty sure nothing ever would.)

“I can’t believe you’re drinking that,” she said as she took her vodka tonic from the bartender.

“What?” Bucky laughed. “It’s sweet. I like sweet drinks.”

“You are five years old,” she informed him as they moved further into the room. Bucky hadn’t seen anyone he knew yet, but they were also a little early, having come straight from the office. Most people had gone home to change, including Wanda, who had sworn she’d be there by eight at the very latest. (Peter wasn’t coming. His aunt’s annual holiday blowout was the same night, and he was her official party photographer.)

There were tables piled with finger foods and waiters circulating with trays of delicious looking things, so Bucky figured that getting there early meant he had more time to sample the goods. And drink the drinks.

“Do you think it would be weird if we’d brought Ziploc bags to fill up and take home?” he asked, his mouth full of something called a shrimp puff.

“Yes,” she replied without hesitating. “You have cream cheese on your lip.”

They ended up at one of the tall tables near the door, Bucky moving on to his second drink while Natasha nursed her first. Their location meant they were in a prime position for Bucky to see Steve Rogers walk in with a beautiful brunette on his arm. His heart plummeted into his stomach before he realized that the knockout in the red dress was _Peggy Carter._ She looked so different from her usual buttoned-up business attire that he’d completely failed to recognize her. He blamed it on Steve, who had been a distraction in a dark navy suit, his hair slicked back and beard perfectly trimmed.

“Wow,” Natasha breathed next to him. “Who is _that_?”

“That’s Steve Rogers,” Bucky replied. “He’s the Chief Design Officer. He’s a big deal.”

“Huh?” Natasha replied. “No, Yasha, the woman.”

(Okay, so he had been wrong about Natasha being impossible to impress.)

“Oh,” he said. “That’s Peggy Carter. She’s the Chief Corporate Security Officer, and I think she’s his ex-girlfriend.”

“Why do you know that?” Natasha asked, glancing at him.

“Uh, you know. Office gossip,” Bucky replied before shoving a macaron into his mouth. He watched Steve and Peggy swan across the room, looking every inch like the world’s most Perfect Power Couple. He wasn’t going to obsess about whether or not they were back together, though. Nope, he wasn’t going to spend one second thinking about whether they were sleeping together, either, because Steve wasn’t his, and he wasn’t Steve’s. Anyway, he and Gus were going to the Christmas market in Union Square the next day, so he was _just fine_.

Wanda chose that moment to appear, looking around the room and spotting Bucky, who waved her over. “Hi,” he greeted, glancing from her to the guy she had with her. “Uh, Tasha, this is Wanda. Wanda, Natasha, my roommate.”

“Nice to meet you,” Wanda said, shaking Natasha’s hand. “This is Pietro, my brother.”

Wanda hadn’t said anything about having a _cute_ brother, though Bucky had known she was a twin. Pietro was handsome, if slightly rumpled and scraggly, and he seemed pretty good natured. He scored points with Bucky when he offered to go and get a round of drinks for the table. The room was starting to fill up by then, with couples taking to the dance floor and the band picking up steam. Pietro brought the drinks back, and they all had to shout to be heard over the music, which led them to the conclusion that they should just go dance in lieu of conversation.

Bucky got through his third and fourth drinks on the dance floor, a giddy buzz running through his system as he stayed close to Natasha. She made him look good by virtue of her talent, so all he had to do was stand around and occasionally sway to seem like a Very Gifted Dancer. There were plenty of people pressed in on them, and Bucky had worked up a sweat by the time the band went on a break. “Do you want to get another drink?” he asked Natasha, pushing the hair that had escaped his ponytail out of his eyes and wiping his brow.

“No,” she replied, glancing over his shoulder to the nearest bar. “But I’ll come with you.”

It became evident why Natasha had agreed to accompany him as they approached the drinks. Peggy and Steve were standing near the bar, talking to Maria and (ugh) Brock Rumlow. “Hi,” Bucky said when Maria caught his eye, knowing he ought to stop and talk because it would look weird if he didn’t. They all exchanged greetings while Brock shamelessly looked Natasha up and down. Steve was looking at Natasha, too, with a funny expression on his face. But then, Bucky supposed, Steve was into women as well as men, and Natasha was an exceptionally beautiful example of the former.

“Who’s your lovely date, Barnes?” Rumlow said in a way that he probably thought was charming but was actually kind of sleazy.

“Natasha…” Bucky started, just as Natasha spoke up for herself. “I’m Bucky’s roommate,” she said.

Everyone looked kind of confused (while Steve looked both confused and, weirdly, relieved). Bucky couldn’t figure out why until Rumlow piped up again.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

Oh no.

“Uh…” Natasha glanced over. “Him?”

Now everybody was looking at him, from his boss, to the guy he hated, to the guy he kind-of-loved, to the woman who might be dating the guy he kind-of-loved.

“Bucky’s my nickname,” he offered lamely. “It’s...James is my first name but...nobody really calls me that outside of work.” He knew his cheeks were going bright red. To Natasha’s credit, she had no idea he wasn’t using Bucky on the regular these days.

“It’s from Buchanan,” she offered, trying to help him out. “His middle name.”

“Bucky Barnes,” Rumlow alliterated, laughing out loud. “I like it. We’re keeping it, right boss?” He asked, glancing at Maria.

Maria was perceptive, and she looked from Bucky to Rumlow before sipping her drink and raising an eyebrow. “I don’t see why we would.”

Bucky loved Maria. She was the best boss in the world because she was able to deliver sentences like that in a way that made Brock Rumlow look like the pettiest idiot in the world for teasing him. Brock scowled as Peggy stepped in to smooth things over.

“You know,” she said. “I had the damndest time for years with Margaret and Peggy on different forms. Nicknames are more trouble than they’re worth sometimes.”

Natasha knew an opportunity when she saw one, and she pounced on Peggy’s accent, drawing the other woman into a conversation while Bucky took the lull as an opportunity to make a beeline for the bar. He ordered a shot of whiskey followed immediately by another Moscow mule. By the time he turned back around, Natasha and Peggy were deep in conversation, Rumlow and Maria had disappeared, and Steve had his phone out, staring at the screen.

Bucky wasn’t waiting around for Natasha, and he needed a break. The bathroom was a welcome respite, as well as an opportunity to splash some water on his face before heading back out to the party. The shot had hit him hard and fast, and the room was starting to feel overwhelming, especially now the band was back onstage. There were so many people, and the music was so loud, the beat pulsing in his ears as he leaned against the back wall and rubbed his temples.

He was saved from an inevitable headache by Pepper Potts taking the stage to give the annual address, during which she thanked everyone for their hard work and encouraged them to enjoy themselves. She also announced the bonuses for the year, which Bucky hadn’t even realized were a possibility. That got him back in a good mood; he’d be able to buy a few more things for his sisters and maybe even get the new pair of winter boots he needed now that his old ones had sprung a leak.

His newfound good mood sent him back to the bar for another drink. Then he was on the dance floor with Wanda and Pietro, flailing around with both of them at once. He was dizzy and happy, and he wasn’t sure if the floor was spinning but he didn’t care because it was Christmas! Christmas was great, and who gave a shit if Rumlow had made fun of his name? There were more free drinks to be had, damn it.

Somewhere between his eighth and ninth drink (at least, he was pretty sure it was...there were some shots in there that were a little fuzzy), he was caught around the waist by a familiar redhead, and he glanced over with a grin. “Naaaaaaat!” he laughed. “I missed you, where’d you go?”

“I’ve been around,” she said. “You’re in a time out. You need to go somewhere quiet and drink some water.”

That was patently ridiculous. Timeouts were for when Bucky drank too much on the weekends and got loud and embarrassing in public. Natasha would usually send him outside whatever bar they were frequenting to smoke a cigarette and sober up. But he didn’t need a time out right then because he was _totally normal_ and fun.

“Pfft…” he replied, opening his mouth to protest as she led him through a side door into a hallway that was empty save for some food carts piled high with unfinished hors d’oeuvres. She helped him lean up against the opposite wall, pushing his shoulders until he slid down to slump on the ground, his long legs splayed out and his head falling back against the wall behind him.

“Okay, goofy,” she said gently, crouching down to brush some hair from his eyes. “I’m going to go and get you some water. Don’t move.”

“M’not moving!” Bucky replied, still not getting why Natasha thought he was so drunk because he _wasn’t_. It was just that the floor wasn’t level and his head was spinning from the fun of it all. Not from the drinks. Nope.

“No, I know,” she said. “Please try not to puke before I get back.”

Bucky was sort of aware of her leaving, though he felt himself drifting in a haze. The next thing he felt was a hand on his shoulder and someone holding a bottle of water to his lips.

“Just take a drink, that’s good,” the person said as Bucky swallowed automatically. The voice was not Natasha’s voice unless he was drunker than he thought. When he opened his eyes and saw Steve Rogers crouched in front of him, he immediately started coughing, spluttering as the water dripped down his chin and onto his suit.

“Shit…” he said helplessly, looking at the mess he’d made and then up into Steve’s eyes.

“It’s alright,” Steve said immediately, pulling the bottle back. “Let’s give it a second, huh? You feel okay?”

“Ungh,” Bucky replied, attempting to nod but feeling a fresh wave of dizziness come over him instead. Maybe he was drunker than he thought. “Feel...where’s Tasha?”

“Your friend?” Steve asked, looking surprised. “I saw her come back here with you, haven’t seen her since. I thought you might need some water, so I followed you…”

Bucky wasn’t keeping up with any of that. Mostly he latched on to the fact that Steve had been watching him, which was insane because _he_ was the one who watched _Steve_.

“Water?” he asked plaintively, reaching for the bottle again. Steve apparently didn’t believe Bucky was capable of holding it up on his own, so he helped. That meant that he had his hand under Bucky’s on the plastic. Bucky tried really hard not to be distracted by how nice, and warm, and big Steve’s hands were. He could only focus on one thing at a time anyhow.

“Whoa,” Steve said gently, taking the water away and smiling. “Slow down a little, you’ll make yourself sick.”

Bucky nodded in agreement, marveling at how very close Steve was to him. Mere inches away, in fact. So close that Bucky could smell him, and he smelled like whiskey and evergreen and something sharp and clean that he couldn’t place. It was nice. Steve was nice. And Steve was talking, but the slight buzzing in Bucky’s ears meant he hadn’t heard most of it.

“...party in two thousand nine,” Steve finished with a little smile, shrugging.

“Uh huh,” Bucky replied. Steve had a beautiful mouth. A great mouth. It was so close that it was easy for Bucky to imagine kissing it. He wondered what it would be like to kiss Steve, if his beard would burn or if it would feel as soft as it looked.

So, in his infinite drunk wisdom, he decided to find out. He bridged the gap between them and pressed his mouth against Steve’s while the man was in the middle of a sentence. It wasn’t awesome. Steve was surprised, and Bucky was drunk. Their noses and teeth hit, the kiss itself lasting for all of three seconds before Steve pulled back, putting both of his hands on Bucky’s shoulders to steady him. “Okay…” Steve said. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea right now…”

“M’gonna barf,” Bucky replied. By some miracle, Steve was able to grab a nearly empty ice bucket from a cart and get it in front of Bucky’s face before he lost all the drinks and shrimp puffs he’d ingested since arriving at the party. He knew it was pathetic, and the sober part of his brain was screaming about how _fucking mortifying_ this was. But it also felt really, really good to get some of the poison out of his system, so he vomited until there wasn’t anything left, dry heaving a couple of times as Steve held the bucket and (holy shit) rubbed the back of Bucky’s neck.

“There you go,” Steve said, using the same platitudes Bucky’s mom might have resorted to when dealing with a sick kid. “Get it all out, you’re okay.”

“Oh, Bucky,” floated Natasha’s voice from somewhere above him, sounding just as mortified as he felt. He was swimming, and as Steve pulled the bucket away, he looked up to find her standing there with another bottle of water. His head lolled against the wall again, and he was only vaguely aware of the conversation passing between Steve and Natasha.

“I’m sorry…” That was Natasha. “...went to get a washcloth...best I could do was a napkin.”

Bucky felt the press of something cool and wet against his forehead. Probably the napkin Natasha was talking about. It was nice, and he closed his eyes to pray for the world to stop spinning.

“...Steve, pleasure to meet you properly…”

“...he doesn’t usually...nervous...thank you so much...”

Bucky’s eyes snapped open some time later; he wasn’t sure if it had been five minutes or five hours. His head was resting on something soft, and as he shifted his weight, the softness fell to the floor. He picked it up and discovered it was Steve’s suit coat.

“Welcome back,” came the quiet voice to his left. Glancing over, Bucky was somehow both completely shocked and also completely unsurprised to find Steve Rogers sitting there, mirroring his position with his back against the wall. “More water?”

“Please,” Bucky croaked, his voice wrecked as he took the bottle gratefully and downed a considerable amount. “How long…?”

“Only about ten minutes,” Steve assured him. “Your friend went to get your coats, I said I’d sit with you.”

Bucky nodded, lifting a hand up to rub his eyes and push through his hair, which was no longer in its ponytail. He was still very, very drunk, but he wasn’t as completely incapacitated as he’d been before he barfed. “I’m...really sorry,” he began, looking down at his lap. “This is so unprofess…”

Steve cut him off with a raised hand, shaking his head and smiling. “Please,” he said. “This is mild in comparison to some of the antics I’ve seen at this party. If the worst thing that happens tonight is you barfing in an ice bucket, we got off lucky.”

Bucky nodded, his vision swimming as he gathered the courage to look over at Steve again. “I didn’t mean to...I was just…”

“It’s fine,” Steve said, a bit more firmly. “I’m not saying it should become a regular occurrence, but we’ve all done dumb things.”

Bucky fell silent at that, considering. He wasn’t sure if Steve was talking about the kiss or the puking or the drinking, and he didn’t really want to ask. Instead, he handed back the suit jacket.

“Thanks,” Steve said, taking it from him. “You know, I think Bucky’s a great name.”

“Huh?” he replied, looking a little confused.

“Sorry,” Steve smiled, shrugging. “I was just thinking about it. You looked so annoyed by it but...I don’t know. It’s unique. There are a million guys named James in the world, probably only a couple named Bucky.”

Bucky had never thought about it that way before, and he smiled, shrugging and picking at a loose thread on his jacket. “I guess so,” he replied. Steve looked as though he might have said something else, save for the fact that Natasha chose that moment to come back into the hallway.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” she teased. “I’ve got your coat - the coach is turning back into a pumpkin and surge pricing is on for Lyft, so I have a taxi waiting instead, let’s go.”

“That’s not...Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella are…” Bucky attempted to explain before getting completely distracted by Steve giving him a hand up. Steve was so sturdy, and he still smelled good in spite of his recent proximity to Bucky’s barf.

“Uh huh,” Natasha agreed, deftly bundling Bucky into his coat (because he had to admit, this wasn’t the first time she’d taken his drunk ass home). “Steve, thank you for your help and your discretion.”

“My pleasure,” he replied. “Please do send me tickets to your next show - I’d love to see it.”

“Only if you bring your charming friend Peggy,” Natasha said with a smile, and Bucky was just confused. When had Steve and Natasha become best friends? This was weird.

“We wouldn’t miss it,” Steve said, before putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Take some aspirin before you go to bed, and drink more water.”

“I will,” Bucky replied. He was vaguely aware of saying goodnight to Steve, then to Wanda and Pietro, but his next concrete memory came in the taxi Natasha had called. He lay with his head on her lap, and his feet pulled up onto the seat behind him. She stroked his hair as they drove, occasionally scratching his scalp or the back of his neck while he dozed. He didn’t think she was mad, she just seemed kind of concerned. When they reached the apartment, she got him inside and locked the door, helping him into his bedroom and going about the business of getting him down to his boxers.

“M’sorry, Nat,” he mumbled as she pushed his shirt off his shoulders. “Ruined everything.”

“You drink too much, Yasha,” she said quietly, kissing his forehead and shaking her head. “Go to sleep, okay? We’ll talk about it later.”

“Okay,” Bucky agreed, flopping onto his pillow and groaning. “Isn’t Steve...so great?”

“Uh huh,” Natasha replied, working on his pants next. “He’s nice. He knows a couple of the people I work for.” Of course he did. Natasha could parlay that into a shared rapport and friendship because she was a chameleon. His wonderful, chameleon friend who could morph into whatever the situation required, from children’s dance instructor to sophisticated urbanite.

“Oh,” he said, grabbing his quilt to hide under. “I love him.”

“Oh yeah?” she said, sounding bemused as she went to toss his clothes into the hamper and turn out the light. “News to me. You want to talk about that in the morning, too?”

“No,” Bucky replied. “Will you sleep in here?”

“Ugh. You get so sweaty when you’re drunk.”

“Please?”

So, she did, after forcing Bucky to drink another glass of water and take the aspirin Steve had suggested. When he woke up the next morning, she was already up and showered, having left more pills on his bedside table. Bucky took them and rubbed his eyes, stumbling out to the living room where he was greeted with Natasha frying up bacon and sausage and eggs. There was a Dean & DeLuca bag on the tiny bar cart that served as an island, alongside a giant poinsettia plant and a French press filled with coffee.

Bucky was pretty sure they hadn’t had a French press yesterday. He was also ninety percent certain that Natasha hadn’t gone grocery shopping, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have gone all the way into the city to pay Dean & DeLuca prices.  

“Good morning, sunshine,” she greeted with a smile. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Huh?”

She gestured to the spread and handed Bucky a handwritten note card that had been tucked into the poinsettia.

> _Bucky and Natasha,_
> 
> _Hope you two made it home alright and that this helps with the hangover. Happy holidays and best wishes for the new year._
> 
> __\- SR_ _

“Yeah,” Natasha said to Bucky’s shocked expression. “He sent over all the bacon and eggs in the world, plus sausage, plus bread, plus all these crazy condiments, plus...oh my God, Bucky, the bagels and the scones. He must have picked all this shit out himself. He had a messenger drop it off at like eight o’clock. You should get drunk and embarrass yourself more often.” She hesitated for a second, cocking her head at him. “Not really, though.”

“But...why?” Bucky asked, confused and slightly helpless in front of the generous outpouring from Steve.

“I don’t know, he probably sees you as a worthwhile charitable contribution,” Natasha teased. “It _is_ the season of giving, after all.”

“Nat…” he said. “I’m so hungover. I can’t deal with processing this. Can I just eat the food and you can tell me how to feel about it later?”

“Yup,” she agreed, starting to flip the sausages in the pan. “Believe me, Yasha, we are going to talk _all_ about it later.”

The inevitable discussion didn’t seem like such a bad idea after coffee and breakfast, which was delicious. Apparently paying a million dollars more for gourmet groceries did yield some results. Bucky picked at a scone while he and Natasha sat down to debrief, and he asked her the question that had been plaguing him since waking up. “Did I embarrass myself in front of anyone besides Steve?”

“No,” she replied, which made him breathe a sigh of relief. “You were...getting loud and kind of obnoxious on the dance floor, but I got you out of there before you did anything monumentally stupid.”

“Oh thank fuck,” he sighed, rubbing his face again. “I think I kissed Steve.”

Natasha was quiet for a second, raising an eyebrow. “You think, or you know?”

“I know,” he said. “He was just right there…”

“Oh sure, because proximity always means people want to make out with you, we all know that. It’s why you and Clint start fucking every time you go over there to play video games.”

“Okay but...shut up.”

Natasha smirked, shaking her head. “It’s probably fine, he knew you were wasted, and he’s a good guy. He went back there to take care of you on his own, you know, I didn’t ask him to.” She paused, glancing over at the kitchen. “And he bought us presents, so he couldn’t have been too pissed. I think you’re in the clear.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said quietly. “I know I shouldn’t put you in that position.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” she agreed. “You also can’t drink like you’re in undergrad anymore. Just because there’s an open bar doesn’t mean you have to get shitfaced.”

“I know,” he groaned, shaking his head. “I’m really sorry, Nat.”

“It’s okay,” she replied, reaching over to muss his hair. “But maybe think about cutting back as a New Year’s resolution thing? New year, fresh start. Whatever.”

“Maybe,” Bucky agreed.

A week and a half later, when he was counting down the minutes to midnight, he decided that he was _definitely_ giving up drinking. He hadn’t even had one drink at the party he and Natasha had thrown. When the clock struck midnight, and he kissed Gus completely sober, he convinced himself it was better than kissing Steve Rogers while shitfaced. At least with Gus, he would remember it thoroughly the next day.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case you need a little visual inspiration, here's how I picture [the StarkTech party decor](https://imgur.com/a/eqr9v). 
> 
> Thanks for reading - you guys make me happy! Up next is continued awkwardness and maybe even some forward momentum.
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr at [notlucy.tumblr.com](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/).


	7. January

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's really good at resolutions; Steve makes a charitable contribution.

New Year's Resolutions were usually bullshit. Bucky knew that, but his motivation on January 1st was so high that he really did feel as though he could conquer anything. Gus had spent the night after the party, and they’d had breakfast before he headed back to the city. Motivated-Bucky put on his sneakers and went running once he was alone, which he hadn’t done in at least six months. (No, probably more like eight months. It had been a while.)

The lapse in his training regimen became evident as he huffed and puffed his way towards the waterfront, determined to run all the way to the bridge and back. When he got a stitch in his side during mile two, he realized he might have been a bit optimistic and turned towards Prospect Park instead. By the time he got to the park he was breathing heavily enough that he was drawing funny looks, so he slowed to a walk and took a moment to admire the scenery. It was a beautiful day, crisp and cold with a sky full of puffy clouds and a sense of promise that only a new year could bring. (And if thinking that way was corny, well, just call Bucky a little cornball.)

He was back at work on the 2nd, relieved that the long break had given him ample time to forget about the disastrous holiday party. There was plenty to catch up on since the company didn’t exactly stop running during the break just because most of the employees were off. Bucky was thrown into the thick of things, and Maria offered him a project that went a bit beyond his administrative duties. Sure, it was just writing a couple press releases for a small product launch, but it was a change of pace from coffee runs and note taking.

He didn’t see Steve until the second week of January. The opportunity was literally just the chance to _see_ Steve: he was one of the presenters at StarkTech’s so-called “state of the union” address. Said address forced all the employees to gather in the theater (because they were the kind of company that had a theater) to listen to the bigwigs talk about the upcoming year. The bigwigs in question for this one were Pepper, of course, alongside Steve and Tony, who gave smaller presentations about major new initiatives. Steve was a skilled speaker. He wasn’t as naturally charismatic as Tony, but he was warm and funny with a practiced ease that could win over anyone. (Not that Bucky needed to be won over.)

Overall, though, Bucky thought he was doing a pretty good job of _not_ thinking about Steve Rogers until January 24th when Steve messaged him on the shared company Slack app. (Apparently there were rumblings that StarkTech needed to develop a Slack competitor, which Bucky thought was stupid because they ought to just buy Slack instead.)

> _Steve Rogers: Hi. :)_

Shit. Steve had never messaged him before, not even when the campaign was going on. And what the fuck was he doing with a smiley face? Bucky wasn’t sure what the right tone to strike was, so he settled on professional and courteous.

> _James Barnes: Hi Steve, hope you’re having a good Tuesday. What’s up?_

Then, nothing. For a while. The little status bar indicated that Steve was typing, but it was ten full minutes before the next message came through.

> _Steve Rogers: Yes thanks. What does your afternoon look like?_

That was ambiguous, Bucky was fairly sure it didn’t take ten minutes to type. He glanced at his calendar before going back to Slack.

> _James Barnes: Meeting from 2-3, otherwise free._

The break before the next response wasn’t as long, and Bucky was alerted to a new message just a few minutes later.

> _Steve Rogers: Great can you come to my office around 4? Thx._

Bucky looked at the clock. Four was officially five hours from that exact moment, and he wondered it if was possible to die from nerves and/or anticipation. But he didn’t want to ask Steve why he wanted to see him because maybe it was better not to know in case it was bad.

He waited a while before responding, typing and re-typing what he wanted to say before finally hitting enter. After that, he got up and walked away from his keyboard, deciding that coffee was required.

> _James Barnes: Sounds great, see you then!_

By the time four o’clock rolled around, Bucky had come up with three equally plausible scenarios for why Steve had invited him upstairs without Maria or Rhodey being involved.

  1. Steve was going to fire him. That explanation made the most sense because Steve was the one Bucky had sexually harassed at the holiday party. Maybe Maria already knew, and that was why she’d taken off sick. Maybe her ‘doctor’s appointment’ was total bullshit and she was already hiring a new assistant.
  2. Steve’s computer had been hijacked by some asshole in IT, and the whole thing was a prank designed to humiliate Bucky. This scenario was a little less plausible because Bucky wasn’t sure he actually knew anyone in IT so they would have no real reason to embarrass him. Still, it would explain the smiley face.
  3. Steve had invited Bucky upstairs to make out with him and then take him apart, slowly, on top of his desk. Bucky was _pretty sure_ it wasn’t going to be number three.



In the end, it was none of the above. Danny sent him back to where Steve was waiting, and Bucky knocked on the doorframe tentatively.

“Hey, James,” Steve said, flashing him a smile as he got up from his sofa to cross the room. He was back to being James, apparently, which he only noticed because Steve’s note with the food had been to _Bucky_ and Natasha. But, he supposed, he’d never given Steve explicit permission to call him Bucky, so the guy was probably just being polite.

“Hi,” he said, forcing a smile. If Steve was smiling that probably meant he wasn’t going to be fired. That was good.

“Come on in, have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the sofa before crossing behind Bucky to shut the door. “I won’t keep you long.”

“Oh it’s...fine,” Bucky said, looking around the office as he sat down. He hadn’t paid too much attention to anything other than the furniture the first time he’d been in there, but he saw now how many little personal touches there were. Steve had interesting taste in art, with some unique prints up on the walls (or, hell, maybe they were originals. The guy was rich). There were some figurines on shelves along with a ton of books, and he had his awards lined up in a row along a windowsill. He also had a bar cart, which reminded Bucky of why he wasn’t drinking right now.

Steve crossed the room to sit a few couch cushions away from him, and he smiled as he angled his body towards Bucky’s, effortlessly casual despite the shirt and tie. “So your friend, Natasha?” he began. “I wondered if you had the name of the dance company she performs with? We talked about it at Christmas, and I completely forgot the name she gave me.”

That...was not what Bucky had been expecting. So much so that the synapses in his brain didn’t fire enough for him to process it. “Uh, what?” he managed.

“Did I get that wrong?” Steve asked, genuinely concerned. “I thought Natasha had mentioned that she danced with a non-profit company.”

“No, she does!” Bucky said quickly. “Sorry I was...I thought you wanted to see me for work stuff. My brain was...nevermind. Sorry. It’s uh, the Rushman School, I think the whole thing’s called? They have a bunch of different styles of dance, but she performs with the Red Company - that’s the modern dance stuff.”

“Great,” Steve replied, reaching for the notebook on the coffee table and writing it down.

“Uh, can I ask why?” Bucky offered after a moment.

“Oh,” he said, looking a little surprised at the question. “Well, I enjoy supporting charitable causes. Especially the arts. So…” He shrugged, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.

“You want to give them a donation?” Bucky said, knowing he sounded taken aback.

“...yes?” Steve replied, sounding unsure, which was new. “Unless you don’t think it would be appreciated? I could always do it anonymously.”

“No, I definitely think it would be appreciated,” he said immediately. “Sorry, I’m just...you could have just asked me on Slack, you know.”

Bucky was pretty sure he was dreaming because now Steve Rogers looked fucking _abashed_.

“Well,” Steve said, rubbing the back of his neck again, which Bucky was starting to suspect indicated nerves. “I figured...I could check in, make sure…” He sighed, looking up at Bucky and shrugging. “Honestly, I felt like an idiot after sending you guys the food, and I wanted to make sure I hadn’t overstepped. I don’t want to make you feel awkward.”

Bucky suddenly had the horrible and startling realization that in his zeal to forget the Christmas party over the break, _he had never actually thanked Steve for his generous gift_.

“Oh fuck,” he muttered, before clapping a hand over his mouth. Maria and Wanda didn’t mind him swearing like a sailor, but he didn’t know Steve that well. Luckily, the other man started to laugh just as Bucky started to babble. “Seriously, it was so nice of you. We were falling all over ourselves. I’m just an asshole who can’t say thanks. For...all of it. You got me water and let me puke on you, and I’m honestly surprised I still have a job after that little performance…”

“James…” Steve said with a laugh, cutting him off. “I told you then, and I can repeat it now, these things happen. I’m just glad you guys liked the food.”

“We loved it,” he replied, nodding enthusiastically. “And we use the French press every day now, swear to God.”

Steve smiled, glancing at Bucky for a second with an unreadable expression before nodding. “Good. Then I feel better. I’ll keep my Natasha-related questions to Slack from now on.”

“That’s not...sorry,” Bucky said again, and he wondered if he was ever going to have a conversation with Steve without apologizing. “I was just surprised, that’s all. But you can have me up here anytime.”

...sweet Jesus. Bucky was officially going to go and live in a hole.

Steve’s mouth twitched, and he looked like he was suppressing a laugh. “Uh huh,” he said, getting to his feet.  Apparently, that was Bucky’s cue that the meeting was over. “Good to know,” Steve continued with a nod as he walked Bucky towards the door. “Tell Natasha I said hi, okay?”

“I will,” Bucky replied, hesitating for a second as Steve reached for the door handle. “Um...you can call me Bucky. If you want. I don’t mind it when it’s, you know, people I like.”

He couldn’t see Steve’s face, but he didn’t miss the way the man’s shoulders relaxed a little when he pulled open the door. “I’ll take that under advisement,” he said with a nod. “Bucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slower chapter after the ridiculousness that was Bucky's Christmas disaster. Things will pick up again soon! Thank you to everyone who has left kudos and comments - I am feeling the love! 
> 
> I've been posting some fic-related thoughts on Tumblr at [notlucy.tumblr.com](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/).


	8. Frigid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes for a run in the rain; surprises ensue.

Bucky wasn’t sure how it happened, but after the January meeting, he and Steve Rogers were almost, sort of, friends. Or, at least, Steve occasionally sent him messages on Slack, most of which were links to articles he thought Bucky would find interesting. It was somewhere between odd and sweet - as though he saw himself as Bucky’s mentor.

Work was going swimmingly with Maria trusting Bucky to write more and more on his own. She’d also let him handle putting together a couple press kits, which didn’t seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but Bucky loved the added responsibility. In fact, the only shit thing at work was his increasingly fraught relationship with Brock Rumlow, who just rubbed Bucky the wrong way. He was smarmy, insincere, and the type of person who asked stupidly invasive questions. He’d also taken to hanging around Bucky and Wanda’s pod to gossip when there was absolutely no reason for him to be there.

Still, if Brock was the worst thing about his day, Bucky could handle it.

He was feeling decent about his social life as well, despite the fact he and Gus had gotten into a fight on Valentine’s day over whether or not they were exclusive. (Gus didn’t see Bucky’s logic behind _not_ being exclusive, while Bucky was incapable of explaining that the idea of making it official scared the shit out of him.) They’d gotten over it, but it was still a touchy subject.

Bucky also hadn’t had a drink in almost eight weeks. It was kind of great. He didn’t think he was an alcoholic or anything, but the absence of booze in his life had him getting up earlier, sticking to his running regimen, and consistently kicking Clint Barton’s ass at MarioKart.

(“Fuck you!” Clint howled as Bucky knocked him right off the Rainbow Road one Saturday afternoon.

“Sorry you suck at this,” Bucky replied.)  

Another result of his reduced alcohol consumption and increased physical activity was that he’d lost ten pounds in addition to his beer bloat. He had even recently decided to train for a half marathon, which meant a change in his routine. He woke up at six every weekday to run a few miles, and he did longer eight- to ten-mile sessions on the weekends. He’d also started taking advantage of the gym at StarkTech to get in some strength training after work. (Natasha had taken to teasing him about his “gains” and the protein powder he put in his morning smoothies. He’d say she was jealous except, well, she was physically perfect and intimidating in every way.)

On a cloudy Saturday in early March, he woke up at seven and immediately pulled on his running gear. It was still frigid in the mornings, and it looked like it might rain, so he left his phone and earbuds at home and put on his fuzzy fleece ear warmers instead. Truth be told, he liked running without music sometimes. Music was a distraction and running without it let him listen to the rhythms of the city instead. He was determined to get in at least eight miles, which meant he could loop around Prospect Park, then head back down Argyle towards home. However, as he finished mile five, a raindrop landed on his head. Then another. Then a fucking deluge.

Rain wasn’t so bad in the summer, but the fact that it was barely above freezing and he had three miles to go made Bucky groan. There was nothing for it - he didn’t have his phone, and it wasn’t like he was going to get a Lyft. So he just ran faster, getting out of the park and turning down Argyle. He was in the zone, despite the rain, so much in his head that it barely registered the first time he heard someone call his name. It took a second attempt to get through to him because who was going to be out there yelling at him?

“Bucky?”

He stopped, turned, and found Steve Rogers standing under the awning of a building with a metal grate pulled down over the window. The grate had a mural of kids playing baseball on it, which he only noticed because it was yet another utterly bizarre detail wrapped up in this strange situation. “Steve?” Yeah, this officially made no sense.

“Hey…” Steve said, looking sheepish as Bucky glanced at the name on the awning over his head - _The Erskine Youth Club_. Bucky vaguely remembered noticing it before, and yet it explained exactly nothing about what Steve was doing in Brooklyn.

“Uh...hey,” he echoed, stepping under the awning because now that he wasn’t running anymore he was fucking freezing. “Why are you standing in the rain?”

“Oh,” Steve said. “Long story. I’m going to be a coach for a youth baseball team.” Of course he was. “I thought I was supposed to be meeting them today but…” He shrugged, glancing at the closed metal grate. “Guess I got my dates wrong.”

“That sucks,” Bucky agreed, still marveling over how surreal the entire thing was. “Are you waiting for your driver or something?” He assumed, of course, that Steve had a driver.

“Heh,” Steve laughed, obviously pained as he pushed a hand through his wet hair. (Which, incidentally, looked really good. Steve looked good in general, actually, in boots, jeans, and a dark wool pea coat.) “Sort of. I left my phone at home, and he’s not due back to get me until three, so…” He shrugged. “I’m waiting.”

Huh. Steve Rogers. International Rich Guy, stuck in Brooklyn. That was interesting.

“Can’t you go sit in a coffee shop or something?” Bucky replied. “There’s one around the corner. Or...I mean, I know you have a driver, but surely you have a MetroCard?”

“Funny story,” Steve replied. “You know my wallet? Sitting next to my phone. I was in a rush and I just...walked past both of them.”

Steve Rogers! An idiot! Bucky was so pleased.

“Oh,” he said. “Well...they’ll let you sit in there even if you don’t buy anything, probably.”

“I couldn’t do that,” Steve said, looking affronted. “I’d feel guilty.” Because of course he would.

“Huh,” Bucky nodded, before an idea formed in his mind. A really stupid, stupid idea, but one that was out of his mouth before he thought better of it. “You could...come back to my place. Use my phone to call your driver.”

Yeah, definitely a brain trust, that was Bucky Barnes. Of _course_ Steve Rogers didn’t want to come back to his place. That was totally weird, and he’d probably rather stand under an awning all day getting wet than…

“Sure,” Steve said. “How far’s your place?”

“Uh...it’s a couple of miles,” he admitted. “I was running, so…”

“Well, there’s nothing for it,” Steve replied. “Thirty minutes of walking in the rain sounds a lot better than five hours standing in it. Sorry to have ruined your run, though.” He pushed away from the grate, and just like that they were walking down the street together, getting completely drenched.

“Oh, it’s uh...it’s fine,” Bucky shrugged, trying not to think about the fact that he had just invited Steve _fucking_ Rogers back to his shitty little apartment.

The thing about walking two miles in freezing cold rain was that it didn’t exactly inspire conversation. Bucky and Steve spent most of the walk hunched into themselves, trying to ignore the fact that the downpour was getting heavier. By the time they reached Bucky’s building, his teeth were chattering, and he couldn’t feel his fingers despite the gloves on his hands.

“Th-this is me,” he huffed, reaching into his jacket pocket for his keys. He’d never thought much about his building before, but it struck him now how old and worn it would inevitably look to Steve’s eye. He wasn’t embarrassed, exactly, it was just that he was sure Steve was used to the finer things in life, and the apartment he shared with Natasha could have fit into Steve’s office at StarkTech several times over.

Still, the building was warm, and he showed Steve into the vestibule before going to unlock the inner door. “I’m on the third floor,” he said. “There’s an elevator but it doesn’t work so well if you don’t mind the stairs?”

“I don’t mind the stairs,” Steve replied. “I feel bad about dripping on everything, though.”

Bucky privately thought that the building was so poorly maintained that it really wouldn’t matter if Steve blasted the interior with a firehose, but he kept that thought to himself and shrugged. “It’s okay, the whole basement flooded during Sandy, apparently.”

“Ah, yeah,” Steve nodded, as though he understood the plight of shitty Brooklyn buildings in a hurricane. Bucky led Steve up the staircase to the third floor. He and Natasha were the unit in the middle of the hall, and as he started undoing the deadbolts, he began noticing how small and dingy everything felt.

The apartment itself was fine for the two of them if a bit cramped. Natasha had insisted on painting the walls a cheerful color (“makes it seem bigger”) and she was good at efficiently using the small space they had. Still, Bucky knew it was tiny, with windows that didn’t quite keep out the cold air and radiators that pinged and hissed more than they did the work of keeping things warm.

He wrestled the door open, bringing Steve into the tiny entryway. The apartment was warmer than the outdoors, at least, despite the radiators and the drafty windows. “Um...this is dumb but can you take your shoes off? Natasha’s militant about that shit.”

“Sure,” Steve replied, like it was no big deal, reaching down to unlace his boots as Bucky toed out of his sneakers. He walked into the living room, which was also the dining room, which was also the kitchen. Everything was mere feet away from everything else, and he was trying not to obsess over what Steve would think, but he couldn’t help it.

“This is nice,” Steve commented as he came in behind Bucky. God, Steve took up a lot of room. He had a presence that filled the whole space, which sounded really stupid but it was the only way Bucky could find to describe what it felt like having him there. “Reminds me of home.”

“Home?” Bucky asked, confused. He wasn’t sure exactly where Steve lived, but he was pretty sure it was on the Upper East Side.

Steve smiled, walking over to the window to take a look at the street outside. “Yeah, home,” he said. “I grew up in Brooklyn.”

“Seriously?” None of Steve’s bios talked about that. Sure, Bucky knew that he’d gotten his MFA from the Brooklyn College of Art (thanks, Google), but he didn’t think Steve was actually _from_ Brooklyn.

“Uh huh,” he said again. “Not so far from here, actually.” He glanced over at Bucky and laughed. “Why, is that surprising?”

“It’s…” Bucky hesitated. “I guess? I just assumed you grew up in Manhattan or...I actually don’t know where I thought you were from.”

“I wasn’t born at StarkTech, you know,” he replied, teasing Bucky a little, which sent Bucky’s stomach swooping. Nope, he was going to banish that feeling immediately.

“Right,” Bucky said. “Of course. Um, let me get you a towel.” He disappeared into the bathroom, where they kept spare towels in a tiny little cabinet. He pulled out two, coming out to toss one to Steve and using the other to start drying his hair.

“Thank you,” Steve said, mimicking Bucky’s actions, which made his hair stand up on end. Which was _adorable_. Ugh, stupid Steve.

“Do you want…” he hesitated. “You can use my phone or, I mean if you want to change I’ve got some sweats that might fit you.” Steve was taller and broader than Bucky, but sweats were baggy, so in theory it might work.

“You get changed first,” Steve said immediately because Bucky (damn it) was still shivering in spite of himself. “If you’ve got something for me, I’ll try it out after that.”

Bucky nodded, going to his room and shutting the door. He took a couple of deep breaths before walking over to kneel by his bed, which had drawers underneath (thanks, Ikea). He pulled out two pairs of sweatpants as well as a couple t-shirts, wishing he had more than just one hoodie. After some deliberation, he decided to leave the hoodie for Steve and take the long-sleeved Henley for himself. His room wasn’t a total disaster, but if Steve was going to change in there he needed it to be presentable, so he took the opportunity to clean up a little while he dressed. That meant shoving a lot of things into his bedside table drawer, including a couple unopened condoms and a bottle of lotion. (He had needs, god damn it.) He also took the opportunity to yank his quilt up, making his bed as much as he ever did before checking that no embarrassing things were peeking out from his hamper or his desk drawers. Satisfied, he opened the door again, damp clothes bundled in his arms. Steve was sitting on one of the salvaged benches that served as seating for their kitchen table.

“Uh, I left clothes for you on the bed,” Bucky said. “I hope they fit.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Steve said kindly as he got to his feet. “Thank you, Bucky, that’s generous of you.”

“Sure thing.”

Steve shut Bucky’s door behind him, and Bucky wasn’t going to think about Steve Rogers potentially being naked in his apartment. Instead, he headed into the bathroom to run a comb through his tangled hair and hang his wet things over the shower bar. He could hear Steve moving around in his bedroom, as the walls weren’t exactly thick. His mind briefly fixated on the idea of Steve going commando under the sweats, but maybe the wool coat had kept his boxers dry enough that he wouldn’t need to. Bucky knew it was a weird thing to think about, but then, most of his thoughts about Steve were weird.

In the absence of anything else to do, he decided that they could both use something warm to drink. One of his Christmas presents from his little sister Rachel had been a Costco sized pack of flavored hot cocoa alongside one of the goofy little hand held frothers that they sold at the dollar store. It was cute, and Bucky’s ma had informed him that Rachel had insisted on getting the cocoa just for Bucky during one of their monthly trips to the warehouse. He was very grateful for Rachel at that moment as he set the kettle to boil and started getting mugs out.

Steve emerged a few minutes later, the towel draped around his shoulders. Bucky’s sweatpants were too short on him, hitting him as his ankle, but the hoodie looked fine, if not as baggy as it tended to be when Bucky was wearing it. He tried not to focus on the fact that Steve was wearing his clothes and instead concentrated on the pile of damp things in Steve’s arms. “Where should I put these?” Steve asked.

“You can hang them in the shower,” he replied. “Or I can get the drying rack out if you want…” A drying rack which he’d inherited from his mother. It was a necessity in a world where laundry had to be taken to a laundromat and sometimes they just didn’t want to wait around for things to dry.

“No, the shower’s fine, I don’t want to put you out any more than I already am,” Steve said immediately, instinctively finding his way to the bathroom (which wasn’t that hard, considering the tiny space).

“You’re not putting me out,” Bucky called after him.

Steve returned a moment later, crossing to the kitchen and smiling a bit. “Yes I am,” he said. “You won’t say it, but I’m willing to bet you’d rather be doing anything than have me standing awkwardly in your personal space.”

“I…” Bucky hesitated. “It’s a little weird,” he agreed finally. “You’re...I mean, I haven’t had anyone from work over here before.” He tried to say it as though Steve was just his buddy. Like he was Wanda or Peter. But the fact of the matter was that Steve was one of the three most senior people at StarkTech and he was currently standing in Bucky’s tiny living room. But at the same time, it was fine. Mostly. Steve was being really nice and he hadn’t seemed to notice how dirty the baseboards were.

“I promise I won’t keep you from your day,” Steve responded. “Honestly. If I can borrow your phone, I’ll be out of your hair as soon as my guy can get here.”

“Steve,” Bucky said, smiling a bit, for once feeling like he almost had the upper hand. “It’s fine. At least have a drink and warm up first.”

Steve, who had been holding a lot of tension in his shoulders, relaxed slightly. “That’d be nice, Bucky, thank you,” he said. “Just...as long as I’m not putting you out.”

“You said that already,” he pointed out. “And I already told you that you’re not.” Steve was about to say something else when the kettle started to whistle, so Bucky turned to grab it. “Do you want caramel or raspberry hot cocoa?” he asked, determined to keep Steve from second-guessing his decision to stay.

“Oh, I’m fine with either,” Steve said easily. “Whichever one isn’t your favorite.”

Bucky should have known Steve would go for the cop-out answer, but he wasn’t going to call him out. Instead, he gestured towards their lumpy sofa and shrugged. “Raspberry it is, then. Have a seat, I’ll bring it over.”

Steve crossed the room in about three strides, sitting down with a little ‘oomph’ as he sank into the decidedly squishy sofa. The couch had come from Bucky’s parents, and Natasha had insisted on getting a slipcover to hide the hideous nineties floral fabric. Still, it was a good couch, if kind of worn out from years of use and abuse from four active kids.

Bucky finished making the cocoa, using his extremely high tech frother to get both mugs perfect. He brought them over to Steve, setting them down on the coffee table before standing and wiping his hands on his sweats. “Um, let me get you my phone,” he said, not quite ready to sit down just yet.

“Sure,” Steve agreed as Bucky went into his room, where his phone was still attached to the charger by the bed. It was a StarkPhone, but it was the kind that came free with a contract, so it had been two years out of date when he got it. He’d also had it for three years now, so he felt a little embarrassed to be handing it over to Steve, who had designed the damn thing. Still, it worked, and Steve needed a phone.

“Thanks,” Steve said, looking up as he palmed the device. Bucky nodded, hovering awkwardly near the couch, unsure if Steve wanted him so close. The relative ease he’d been able to adopt in the kitchen was rapidly fading in the face of sharing a squishy sofa with his crush. “You gonna sit?”

Apparently, close was acceptable. Bucky sat, nearly shoulder to shoulder with Steve. He didn’t know what to do, as Steve wasn’t actually using the phone. Instead, he was looking at a framed photo on the wall of Natasha and Bucky at their graduation ceremony.

The silence was starting to overwhelm Bucky, so he blurted the first thing that came into his head to fill the gap. “So uh,” he stammered. “I’m sorry I kissed you at Christmas.”

Steve whipped his head over to look at Bucky so quickly that he was pretty sure the guy had pulled something. “You remember that?” he asked, which was not what Bucky had been expecting to hear.

“Uh, yes?” he replied. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

Steve shrugged, plucking a piece of lint off the hoodie before he leaned over to pick up his mug. “I wasn’t sure,” he said. “You were pretty drunk, and it was over quickly.”

“I remember,” Bucky mumbled, his cheeks reddening. “It was stupid of me.”

“If it helps,” Steve said. “I didn’t think anything of it.”

No, that didn’t help. If anything, that made it worse, because not only had he kissed Steve, Steve apparently didn’t give a shit that he’d been kissed. Bucky wasn’t sure what to say, so he finally settled on, “oh.”

Steve got quiet again, before blowing on his cocoa and taking a sip. “I only mean,” he said eventually. “I didn’t think _you_ meant anything by it.”

“So you think I kiss a lot of people, then?” Bucky asked, his defensiveness rising.

Steve smiled at that, looking over at him and shrugging. “Is that so bad?” he asked. “You’re what, twenty-two? You should be having fun. Not necessarily the kind of fun where you kiss your CDO at a Christmas party, but yeah, Bucky, I hope you’re kissing a lot of people.”

Bucky’s stomach was on a fucking rollercoaster, and he had absolutely no idea what to say to that particular piece of information. So, once again, he went with the first thought that came into his head. “I did want to, though. Kiss you.”

It was Steve’s turn to look a little dumbfounded before laughing in surprise, which made Bucky feel like a piece of shit. “You don’t have to try and make me feel better,” Steve chuckled.

“I’m not!” Bucky insisted. “It was...you were very...kissable. You’re...that’s…” He was painfully aware of the fact that he was blushing again; he could feel his ears heating up as he looked down at his lap, unable to meet Steve’s eyes. “I know it’s stupid. You’re like...my boss’ boss’ boss, or whatever…” he trailed off, shrugging because the conversation had taken a turn and he wished he’d never opened his mouth in the first place.

“That’s true,” Steve agreed. “Which is the biggest reason kissing me was a bad idea. I’m also a lot older than you.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Bucky snapped before he could help himself, his growing anxiety and embarrassment not doing much to curb his temper. Steve didn’t say anything; he didn’t have to. His presence alone was enough to make Bucky feel guilty for barking at him, and after a moment he relented. “I mean, you’re not that much older than me.”

“I’m thirty-six,” Steve said, shrugging. “That’s a lot older than twenty-two.”

“Yeah, well, lucky for you I’m twenty- _three_ ,” Bucky replied, his hackles going up again. “Twenty-four in a week.” (Six days, to be exact.)

“Happy early birthday,” Steve said automatically.

“Thanks.”

They got quiet, and Bucky had just about worked up the nerve to say something when Steve broke the silence instead. “Look,” he said, which was never the start of a sentence Bucky wanted to hear. “I’m not saying I haven’t noticed you, or that I didn’t appreciate the kiss. But it’s a conflict of interest. Even if I wanted to. It’s not ethical, Bucky.”

“Fuck ethical,” Bucky replied, because if they were having the conversation he’d never imagined having, he was going to argue his position. “I’m not that naive, I know there’s dynamics and shit.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, looking a skosh annoyed at being cut off and snapped at. Instead of biting back, though, he leaned against the couch and took a sip of his drink. “Alright then, enlighten me. What dynamics do you see playing out here?”

Bucky scowled, thinking it over for a second before attempting to apply as much Psych 101 bullshit from undergrad as he could remember. “Uh...there’s like...a power imbalance, because you’re older than me and also because you have a more important job than me.”

“Debatable, but yes, basically,” Steve agreed. “Do you see why that’s not great? And how it’s unfair to you?”

“How is it unfair if we’re both aware of it?” he retorted, which (ha) shut Steve up. “I mean, it’s only really bad if you’re taking advantage of it, right? Exploiting me? I don’t feel exploited.”

“Bucky, that’s not…” Steve sighed, shaking his head and pushing a hand through his hair.

“Okay, but could you stop being so morally upstanding for like two seconds and acknowledge that I’m not wrong?” Bucky exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

Steve didn’t say anything, he just raised his eyebrow again, which made Bucky feel like a petulant kid. So he acted like one. “Whatever,” he huffed. “Are you going to use my phone or not?”

“Yes,” Steve replied, his expression softening a bit as he handed the device over for Bucky to unlock. Bucky did so before handing it back, their fingers brushing lightly. “You make it hard, you know,” Steve said quietly. “You’re charming, and you’re funny, and you don’t give yourself enough credit. Honestly, if I’d met you at a bar or a club…”

“So why can’t you just pretend you did?” Bucky interrupted, knowing he sounded plaintive. “We wouldn’t have to tell anyone. We could just have fun.”

Steve sighed, looking up from the phone and smiling sadly. “How’s that fair to you? You don’t deserve to be somebody’s little secret, Bucky. You’re more than that.”

“I…” Bucky opened up his mouth to protest, just as Steve got through to his driver. He spoke to the man for a couple of minutes, before asking for Bucky’s address. As it turned out, the guy was in Brooklyn already, getting some shopping done, and he could be there within ten minutes. Which was fine; now that Bucky had thoroughly embarrassed himself he just kind of wanted Steve to go. Ten minutes later, he was out the door with his wet clothes in hand alongside another murmured apology for Bucky.

The next day, a package arrived. When he opened it he found his sweats and his hoodie, freshly laundered alongside a box of gourmet hot cocoa and a note.

> _Thank you for your hospitality. I’m sorry._
> 
> _-SR_

Fuck morals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Bucky turns twenty-four, which is practically thirty-six.
> 
> As usual you can find me on Tumblr at [notlucy.tumblr.com](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/).


	9. Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky turns twenty-four. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

“Are you alright?” Gus asked, and Bucky immediately felt guilty. It wasn’t the first time Gus had checked in on him that evening, as Bucky had been distracted the entire time, from ordering their entrees to having them cleared away. He knew it wasn’t fair to Gus, who had gone all out for Bucky’s birthday by getting reservations at a really nice restaurant in Chelsea. Granted, his birthday wasn’t actually until the next day, but Gus had class on Friday nights so he’d insisted on taking Bucky out on Thursday. Which was a really nice thing for the guy to do, considering that Bucky still wouldn’t officially acknowledge their relationship as anything other than ‘dating.’

(Truthfully, Bucky had been distracted the entire week, worrying over his discussion with Steve for hours until it all seemed pointless and stupid. Feeling like everything was pointless and stupid also might have played into his ordering wine with dinner. He figured having a drink with his not-boyfriend for his birthday was probably the least of his concerns.)

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said, forcing a smile as he reached across the small table to squeeze Gus’ hand. “It’s work stuff. I don’t mean to be drifting off.”

Gus nodded sympathetically, turning his hand up underneath Bucky’s to push their fingers together. “That’s fine,” he teased. “I know constitutional law and public policy isn’t your favorite topic.”

“How dare you,” Bucky smirked. “It’s thrilling.”

Gus smiled, going back to his story as they waited for the check. But, of course, the check didn’t come. Instead, the waitress returned with a complimentary slice of tiramisu that held a single candle. Luckily it wasn’t the kind of place where they sang to you.

“Did you…?” Bucky laughed, glancing at Gus.

“I did not,” Gus replied, holding his hands up as if to showcase his innocence.

The waitress smiled, winking at Bucky as she put the plate down. “I saw your birthday when I checked your ID,” she informed him. “Figured you two were out celebrating.”

Bucky was aware that she was probably angling for a bigger tip, and with the way Gus was looking at her like the sun shone out of her ass, he imagined she’d be getting one. They thanked her and Gus gestured towards the cake. “Make a wish,” he prompted.

Bucky had the good grace to feel a little bit guilty about the fact that his wish didn’t have anything to do with the guy sitting across the table from him. Especially when Gus reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a small gift. “It’s not much,” he cautioned. “But I thought you’d like it.”

“You didn’t have to do that…” Bucky protested, taking the gift from him and peeling off the wrapping paper. Underneath was a hardcover photography book Bucky had pointed out a few months before when they’d been in the Strand. He hadn’t had the money for it then, and while it wasn’t hugely expensive or anything, the fact Gus had remembered he wanted it and gone back for it meant a lot. “Wow,” he smiled, biting his lip as he flipped through a couple of pages. “Thank you so much. This is...you remembered I wanted it.”

“Of course I did,” he laughed. “I remember plenty about you.”

That twisted the guilty little knife worming its way into Bucky’s gut harder, and he forced another smile before leaning up and across the table to kiss Gus lightly. He did like him, and maybe it was okay that Gus was nice and sweet and fine. Maybe it was good that he didn’t make Bucky nervous and excited and all twisted up inside the way that Steve Rogers did. That was normal, wasn’t it, what everybody should want?

“Thank you,” he murmured against his mouth before pulling back. “You want some of my tiramisu? I’m not gonna say half because...I’m an asshole.”

Gus smirked at that, reaching for his fork. “Your sweet tooth, Barnes…”

* * *

The next night, Bucky planned on celebrating his actual birthday in style by attending a performance by Natasha’s company before going out with their friends to celebrate. The performance was being held in a tiny black box theater in the East Village, and Bucky barely made it on time thanks to a very shitty commute from midtown. He squeezed into one of the back rows where there happened to be a couple of empty seats. As he got settled, he made eye contact with Clint and Kate, who were sitting directly opposite.

“Hi,” he mouthed, waving at them both.

“Happy birthday!” they mouthed back, causing him to grin and give them a thumbs up.

The performance was due to start at seven, and Bucky had arrived at five to. However, he wasn’t the last late asshole, as someone started making their way into his row at six fifty-nine. “Sorry, excuse me,” the man said as he shrugged off his long wool coat and turned to deposit it on the seat next to Bucky.

“Shit,” Bucky muttered without thinking because it was definitely Steve Rogers settling in next to him. He’d kind of forgotten Steve might be attending this thing, thanks to the information Bucky had given him about Natasha’s company. Mother of fuck.

Steve looked surprised to see Bucky, too, which was annoying because Natasha was _his_ friend, not Steve's. “Uh, hi,” he offered, looking sort of ridiculous as he squeezed into the seat. “Sorry, it’s...there weren’t that many seats.”

“It’s fine,” Bucky replied stiffly. Truth be told, it wasn’t. The theater was tiny, and the seats were minuscule. Steve’s stupid broad shoulders and long legs meant that he was pressed uncomfortably close to Bucky. It also meant that Bucky could smell him and feel him breathing, which ultimately led Bucky to the conclusion that Steve Rogers was _ruining Bucky’s birthday_ due to sheer proximity.

Mercifully, the lights started to go down as Steve got himself settled, and Bucky was just going to ignore him and focus on Natasha since that was the reason they were both attending the same event. The first few numbers were done by the entire group, and while Bucky always enjoyed seeing what everyone could do, he really never tore his eyes from Natasha.

It was during the third number that Steve’s weight shifted and his knee bumped up against Bucky’s. It would have been fine if he’d pulled back, but he didn’t, choosing instead to leave it there, the contact sending a jolt through Bucky’s leg. He didn’t want to pull away either, but he wasn’t sure if Steve was even aware he’d done it. So he chose to shift his own body slightly, dropping his right hand to his thigh, as a glance down told him that his splayed fingers were mere inches from Steve’s own. Not that it mattered.

Nothing happened until the sixth song, which was a duet between Natasha and another woman in the company named Dottie. The piece was called _Widow’s Bite,_ and he’d seen her working on bits of it at home. It was an incredibly athletic dance, one that required both Natasha and Dottie to throw one another around before performing a series of increasingly complicated lifts. Bucky wasn’t worried for Natasha, exactly, but he took in a sharp intake of breath during one particularly acrobatic maneuver.

That was when he felt Steve’s pinky cross over his own, squeezing lightly.

He tensed, caught between the beauty of the performance and the spike of adrenaline that had coursed through him at the touch. He let out a shaky breath before tentatively hooking his finger around Steve’s. His heart was beating out of his chest as he watched the two women complete their dance, reluctantly pulling his finger away to applaud once they were finished.

Steve didn’t touch him again.

When the performance was over, Bucky reached down into his bag to pull out the bouquet he’d picked up for Natasha at a bodega. It wasn’t fancy, but he knew she liked daisies, and it was what he could afford. Flowers in hand, he glanced over at Steve and shrugged. “I’m going to wait for Natasha. So…”

“So am I,” Steve said easily. “I brought her something as well.”

Oh. Well then.

Steve, as it turned out, had bought Natasha a dozen assorted roses which he’d left in the lobby as they’d been too bulky to carry into the theater. That was fine. Jerk.  It wasn’t about the size of the bouquet, after all. Natasha appreciated both of them, of course, and she gave Steve and Bucky kisses on the cheek once she’d emerged from the dressing room.

“Thank you, sweet boys,” she smiled, and Bucky thought ‘boys’ was a little rich considering he was twenty-four now, and Steve was one million in asshole years. “Steve, you ought to come out with us. It’s Bucky’s birthday, we’re celebrating.”

Uh, _no_ , that most emphatically did not need to happen, and Bucky attempted to catch Natasha’s eye to glare at her, but she’d already moved on to greet Kate and Clint.

“I don’t have to…” Steve said quickly, glancing at Bucky to get his reaction.

“It’s fine,” Bucky grumbled. “You should come.” Because apparently when tasked with making the _smart_ choice versus the stupid one, Bucky was always going to go with the one that was liable to hurt him more.

So, Steve gamely accompanied them to a nearby bar while explaining to Natasha that Peggy had wanted to come, but there had been a work emergency and she’d been called away to Washington DC for the weekend. Natasha claimed she could forgive her, but just this once.

When they reached the bar, they were lucky enough to claim a table where Natasha and the members of her company who had joined them could deposit their gifts. After that, they started figuring out who was going to go and order the drinks with Clint loudly reminding them that Bucky wasn’t paying for any of his own birthday beers. Steve did him one better, though, by smoothly handing over his card for the bartender to swipe, starting a tab for the entire group, in honor of Bucky’s birthday and the dancers.

(Well fuck, if Steve was paying, he could have a couple drinks on his birthday, couldn’t he?)

Steve was good in a crowd, with a kind of practiced charm that made Bucky envious, but he wasn’t the same as when they were speaking one-on-one. The Steve that emerged in a group was rehearsed: funny, quick with an anecdote, but not the same guy Bucky had seen in his apartment or in that hallway at the party. Seeing the disconnect was disconcerting, but oddly it made Bucky feel special, as though Steve was showing a part of himself to Bucky that he didn’t show a lot of people.

In spite of the conflicting emotions roiling within him, Bucky felt very loved and lucky as the night went on. He kept the drinks to a minimum in spite of the fact that they were all free, wanting to prove to Natasha that he could handle himself. Various people offered him hugs and kisses, telling ridiculous anecdotes about things he’d done on other wild nights out. He looked up a couple of times to find Steve watching him with an unreadable expression; he still had no idea what to do about that.

“I…” he proclaimed eventually, getting to his feet as though he were going to make a toast. “Just wanted to say. To all my dear friends gathered here. And also the people I don’t know. On the occasion of my twenty-fourth birthday. That...I have to take a piss.” He was roundly jeered for that, smirking as he took a bow and headed to the bathroom to break the seal.

The bar was stiflingly hot when he re-emerged, and it looked like Clint was in the middle of a boring story (he assumed). Bucky took the opportunity to duck outside and bum both a cigarette and lighter from someone already there. He stepped into the alleyway next to the bar for some peace and quiet, taking a drag and wishing he’d brought his coat as he wrapped an arm around himself to keep warm.

“Didn’t take you for a smoker,” came Steve’s voice a few minutes later, his shadow darkening the entrance to the alley as he walked towards Bucky. Maybe Bucky should have been surprised by the company, but he wasn’t. Steve seemed to be everywhere lately.

“Only smoke when I drink,” Bucky replied, looking up at him and smiling a little. “Only drink on my birthday.”

Steve chuckled at that, raising an eyebrow. “That must be new.”

“Yup,” Bucky replied, popping the ‘p’ as he took another drag. “Just since Christmas, actually. I made a real ass of myself in front of this cute guy at the company party.”

That made Steve laugh, and he stepped a little closer. Bucky could smell the whiskey; he knew Steve had been drinking, but he didn’t seem drunk. “Sounds awful,” he said sympathetically. “That guy was probably an asshole anyway, right?”

Bucky looked up, meeting Steve’s eyes and holding his gaze as he dropped the cigarette to the ground. “Sometimes,” he agreed, refusing to let himself look away. “He can be a real dick, actually.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve took another step closer, and Bucky wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on, but his heart was beating a little faster in his chest every time Steve took a step.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, swallowing. “But sometimes he’s nice - holds my hand and buys all my friends drinks for my birthday.”

“Hmm.” He was standing right in front of Bucky by then, looking golden and warm and perfect in his long winter coat. “Still sounds like an asshole to me. You shouldn’t like him so much. I don’t think he’s good for you.”

Bucky hesitated, chewing on his bottom lip, never letting his eyes drop. “Maybe,” he agreed quietly. “But I still want him to kiss me. For my birthday. Maybe I won’t want him so much after that.”

A frown marred Steve’s features, and for a moment it was as though he’d frozen in place. “And...if he kissed you?” He murmured. “For your birthday. That would be enough?”

“Yes,” Bucky lied.

Steve bridged the gap, his mouth meeting Bucky’s in a searing kiss. His hands moved to brace themselves on either side of Bucky’s head, as though he didn’t trust himself. Bucky moaned, there was no other word for the noise that escaped him as Steve crowded him closer to the wall. His hands found their way under Steve’s coat and around his waist, soaking up the warmth. Steve deepened the kiss, his beard soft against Bucky’s skin. It was fantastic, and Bucky found himself gasping against the other man’s mouth a moment later when Steve’s leg pressed firmly against Bucky’s inner thigh. The pressure made his cock twitch in anticipation, which might have embarrassed him except for the way it made Steve groan against his mouth, moving his leg just enough that Bucky let out another little whimper. Steve bit down on his bottom lip in a way that was just the wrong side of painful, his senses overwhelmed with everything that was happening. This wasn’t like kissing Gus; it wasn’t like kissing anyone. He felt himself shaking a bit, though he couldn’t tell whether it was from the cold or his desperation.

It was over all too quickly, Steve pulling back from him with flushed cheeks, taking his hands off the wall while Bucky chased the sensation, wanting more. Steve stopped him with a light hand to his chest, giving him one of those enigmatic smiles that Bucky could never quite figure out.

“Happy birthday, Bucky,” he said quietly. “Go back in with your friends, okay?”

“Steve…” he started, as the other man shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, closing himself off again in that way that made Bucky want to scream at him until he stopped being so fucking impossible. “I can’t.” He turned, walking swiftly out of the alley before Bucky had the chance to come up with a reply. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  
Because fuck Steve Rogers and his mind games. Bucky didn’t need his shit, and he wasn’t going to think about him anymore. Stomping back to the bar, he requested another shot on the tab Steve hadn’t bothered to close out and downed it before slipping back into the booth with his actual friends. Once he was settled, he grabbed his phone and fired off a text.

_Bucky: U up? :)_

_Gus: Always for you, birthday boy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me with Steve right now: [Grr, Steve](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8ioxY9FzXo)
> 
> I PROMISE the burn will not be slow too much longer, y'all. 
> 
> If you need to come yell at me, I'm on Tumblr at [notlucy.tumblr.com](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/).


	10. April Showers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky decides yelling is how one wins friends and influences people.

After Bucky’s birthday, Steve disappeared. He wasn’t at the office, he wasn’t on Slack, he didn’t even come to meetings anymore; Tony was their designated heavy hitter for the current disaster. Bucky tried not to let Steve’s sudden absence from his life get to him; it wasn’t as though Steve had been spending a lot of time at work with Bucky anyway. It had just been a couple of messages, after all. But still. It rankled him. He wasn’t sure if it was hurt pride or justified anger at the way Steve had left him, but it certainly began coloring any thought he had about the man.

A week after his birthday, he was still angry.

Two weeks later, he was livid.

It didn’t help that everyone in Bucky’s life was also acting really shitty. Alexander Pierce’s company, XanCorp, had beaten them to the punch with the announcement of a new line of wearables the day before StarkTech had been set to announce their own upgraded line of fitness trackers. Which meant Maria was in a foul mood, and when Maria was upset she tended to get nitpicky with everyone’s work, including Bucky’s. She had ten thousand changes for everything he wrote, and it wasn’t even his grammar or his spelling, it was just her rewriting everything in her own personal style. That was especially grating considering she’d told him in February that she liked his writing; she’d thought it was different and set a good tone for some of the releases they sent to more youth-oriented media. Now, though, Bucky cringed every time she sent a document back to him with ‘track changes’ turned on. 

Wanda was on deadline, and while she wasn’t unkind, she didn’t have much time to chat with Bucky throughout the day. Peter seemed stressed out too, which was unusual for his friend who usually saw possibilities where everyone else saw pointlessness. Gus, meanwhile, was in the middle of writing a million papers while also trying to secure an internship for the summer, meaning Bucky couldn’t count on his not-boyfriend for stress relief or companionship. Even Natasha was busier than usual, having been asked to pick up some additional yoga-lates (the fuck?) classes for an instructor friend who’d just had a baby. 

So Bucky tried to channel his anger at Steve and his frustration with work into his running, pushing himself further and faster while listening to the loudest music he could get his hands on to drown out the thoughts in his head. 

(The thoughts were never really gone, though, chasing him down with taunts about how Steve had never liked him, how he probably thought Bucky was a fool, how he had better things to do than pay attention to some stupid assistant with a crush.)

All in all, life kind of sucked, and as March turned into April, Bucky was having trouble controlling his temper. He was peevish with Natasha and, while still professional, short with Maria and Wanda on occasion. 

“I don’t know who you’re pissed at,” Natasha had snapped at him in the middle of a fight about whose turn it was to buy toilet paper. “But you’re being a real dick, and I need you to quit taking it out on me.” 

Bucky agreed with that. He _was_ being a real dick, and he certainly could see that he was taking it out on people who didn’t deserve it. In the end, he rationalized, the only person who deserved Bucky’s anger was Steve. So Bucky stayed angry. Steve stayed gone.

The anger was simmering through April, and considering Bucky hadn’t actually laid eyes on Steve since his birthday he was brought up short when he walked into the lobby one Tuesday morning, and Steve was just _standing there_ by the elevators. He was smiling like he wasn’t the world’s biggest asshole, talking with another man in a dark suit while they waited. Bucky stopped walking just as Steve glanced in his direction. Their eyes locked, Bucky’s heart plummeting into his stomach. Then, Steve looked away without so much as an acknowledgment before ushering the other man into the elevator that had just arrived. 

Oh. That hurt. 

It hurt so much that Bucky sat with a sick feeling in his gut about it all day. He was sitting with it when Maria sent back another document full of corrections; he was sitting in it when Brock called him Bucky-boy in the break room; he was sitting with it when he was forced to take over reception for half an hour and smile pleasantly at every goddamn person who came through the doors. 

He was tired of sitting with it.

He didn’t really remember getting on the down elevator and crossing over to the other bank in the lobby. He was in an angry haze when he punched the button for the design floor. The blood was rushing in his ears as he approached Danny’s desk, fighting to keep his composure and knowing deep down that this was a very, very, _very_ bad idea. 

“Is Steve in?” he asked. 

“Uh, he is,” Danny replied. “Do you have an appoint…”

“Great, thanks,” Bucky cut him off, walking past the desk. “This won’t take long.” He ignored Danny calling after him as he marched right into Steve’s office, pushing the door shut behind him. Steve looked up from his desk, and of course, he hadn’t been expecting Bucky. His mouth actually fell open in surprise, which just pissed Bucky off even more, because everything Steve did (or didn’t do) pissed him off.

“You’re an asshole,” Bucky informed him, everything else he’d wanted to say deserting him as he watched Steve rise to his feet, eyes narrowing into slits as he regarded Bucky coolly. 

“You want to try that again?” he asked, his voice annoyingly neutral.

Bucky scowled, jutting his chin out defiantly before repeating himself. “You’re an _asshole,_ ” he spat. 

Steve hadn’t moved, though Bucky was sure he saw a muscle in his jaw twitch. “You need to turn around and walk out of here right now, Bucky, before you do something stupid,” he replied, still infuriatingly calm, which was somehow scarier than if he’d shouted. 

Bucky knew he should. He realized he was monumentally fucking up, but he was pissed, and he was hurt, and he wanted Steve to have to shoulder some of that burden, too. So he squared his shoulders, glaring. “No.”

Steve opened his mouth to say something else when the phone on his desk started ringing. Jaw clenched, he pointed at one of the chairs near the sofa. “Sit down,” he commanded before picking up the phone. The shift in his demeanor was immediate, his voice smoothing out and his tone changing considerably. “Hi, Danny...no, sorry, I forgot to tell you I’d asked James to come up to discuss a release he’s working on. My fault…sure thing, I appreciate you checking. Can you hold my calls until we’re done?” 

_Shit,_ Bucky thought, as he crossed to the chair and sat down, feeling like a stupid kid who was about to get his ass handed to him. Steve was definitely going to fire him, and all of a sudden that righteous anger he’d been holding inside of him seemed less angry and more, well, freaked the fuck out. His head was throbbing, and he wanted to hit Steve and kiss him all at once; he was sick over it. More than that, he wasn’t actually done yelling, no matter how ill-conceived his decision to come upstairs had been. His heart felt as though it was going to pound out of his chest, and his mouth went dry when Steve hung up the phone. The man was intimidating at the best of times, and when he was annoyed? He was terrifying. 

Steve moved from behind his desk to stand in front of Bucky’s chair, crossing his arms over his chest and looking decidedly unamused. “You want to be angry with me, Bucky, that’s fine. You have every right. But you don’t get to come up here in the middle of a workday to yell at me. That’s not okay.”

“How else am I going to do it?” Bucky snapped before he thought better of it. “You disappeared!”

“And you said you’d be satisfied with a kiss on your birthday,” Steve replied, calmly, which infuriated Bucky even more.

“That’s bullshit!” Bucky said, hating how petulant he sounded. “You knew you were being a cocktease, you asshole. You led me on and…” 

Steve cut him off, scoffing. “I led you on? That’s debatable. I told you this wasn’t a good idea from the start.” 

“And then you held my hand in a dark theater and kissed me in an alleyway!” Bucky shouted, his voice rising in both pitch and volume as he worked himself into another fit of anger. 

“Keep your god damn voice down,” Steve said sharply, glancing at the door. 

“Fuck you,” Bucky snapped.

“You watch your fucking mouth,” Steve snarled in response. And fuck _that_ shit. Bucky wasn’t about to let himself be intimidated by some asshole. Especially not an asshole named Steve Rogers.

“Fuck you,” he repeated. “Fuck you, Steve. Fuck you for leading me on and being so nice and so mean and making me think you gave a shit about me before dropping off the face of the earth. Fuck _you_.” 

It happened fast. One second Steve was looking at him and the next he was hauling Bucky up by the arm, his grip just shy of too-hard. Well, it had been nice having a job while it lasted. Bucky was pretty sure Steve was about to frog-march him through the door and inform security that he needed to be permanently escorted from the building. 

Instead, Steve kissed him again, hard and intense and angry. It was too much, too fast, and Bucky’s brain short-circuited a little as he struggled to process what had happened. Steve was relentless, his grip tightening on Bucky’s arm as he pulled back, his eyes dangerous. “Is this what you want?” he muttered against Bucky’s mouth.

“Yes,” Bucky whined because despite the screaming danger signs his brain was flashing in front of him, he _did_ want it. Desperately.

Steve kissed him again, and he wasn’t being nice. Although Bucky had to admit, they were too worked up for nice. His kiss was unyielding, and Bucky choked back a gasp when Steve’s mouth moved to his neck, biting down hard enough to leave a mark. Steve growled as he released Bucky’s arm and pushed a hand into his hair instead, pulling his head to the side so he could lay another vicious bite on Bucky’s neck.

He squirmed, his pulse racing as his traitorous dick swelled against the tight confines of his stupid khakis. The effect Steve had on him was embarrassing, and he was ruled by his baser instincts when he pressed his body up against Steve’s, desperate for any friction he could get. 

Steve had different plans, pulling back from Bucky’s neck and actually _smirking_ like an _asshole_ as he pushed him towards the couch without releasing his hold on Bucky’s hair. He couldn’t focus as Steve manipulated him onto the sofa; he was too hot, and his skin was prickling, beads of sweat emerging on his forehead. Steve was everywhere, looming over him, pressing him into the cushions and kissing him again, hot and wet and a little manic. 

“This is what you want?” he asked again, and Bucky wasn’t sure if he was giving him an out or making a declarative statement. Because it _really_ fucking was what he wanted, and now that he’d had it he didn’t know how he could give it up.

“Please…” Bucky managed, looking up at Steve and biting his lip. The man looked fucking predatory, smiling dangerously as he slotted his knee between Bucky’s thighs. Then, painfully slowly, he leaned forward until he was placing pressure on Bucky’s prominent erection. And because he was awful, he stopped just shy of giving Bucky what he needed. The noise that Bucky produced was humiliating, his cheeks going bright red as he thrust his hips a little, trying to bridge the gap. 

Steve smirked at that, because he was definitely the worst human being alive, and increased the pressure just enough to make it torture. Bucky moaned again, arching his back. “Show me how much you want it, then,” Steve hissed, giving Bucky no quarter as he kissed him. And oh, Bucky wanted it. He wanted it so much that he didn’t care how frantic he sounded, rubbing off against Steve’s leg like a dog in heat. He bit back a strangled cry, unsure how thick the walls were. Steve mercifully clamped a hand over his mouth to shut him up, and Bucky was grateful for it; he honestly wasn’t sure he would have been able to keep himself quiet.

In any other circumstance, Bucky might have prided himself on his stamina, but with Steve pressed against him, covering him and controlling him, his hips stuttered forward far too soon as he came with a grunt, ruining both his boxers and his pants. He didn’t care. He continued to rock against Steve’s leg as the spasms subsided, finally stilling when the last tremors worked their way through him. Steve pulled his hand away from Bucky’s mouth and let out a shuddery sigh of his own, apparently affected by the situation. “Good boy,” Steve murmured before starting to pull away. Bucky didn’t want that. He was embarrassed and freaked out and still kind of angry, so no, Steve Rogers was not fucking leaving. He wrapped his arms around the man’s torso and held him fast. 

Steve, for all that he’d been angry before, now just looked tired. He sighed, kissing Bucky’s forehead and relenting, shifting his weight to accommodate Bucky’s fierce embrace without crushing him. “I’m sorry,” Steve said quietly. “I’m sorry, Bucky, I shouldn’t have...I don’t know why I can’t…”

Bucky scowled, looking up at him with a petulant glare, “can you just stop second-guessing it for thirty fucking seconds, please? I’d like to catch my breath.” 

That actually made Steve laugh, surprised, perhaps, by Bucky’s defiance. “Yes,” he replied. “You can have a minute if you want.” He brought a hand up to rub the place on Bucky’s right arm where he’d gripped him too hard, before pressing a few remarkably sweet kisses along his hairline. Bucky, meanwhile, really did just want to catch his breath and get his head on straight. Then he could deal with the problem of having come in his pants like a teenager and still having half a work day to get through. Oh, and the fact that he still had no idea what the hell any of this meant for his employment or his fucked up relationship with Steve Rogers.

Steve did pull back eventually, pushing a hand through his hair as he sat back and sighed. Bucky noticed with some satisfaction that Steve, too, looked completely fucking wrecked, and he was sporting a not-so-inconsiderable erection, perfectly evident in his gray pants. After a moment of gathering himself, Steve got to his feet, and Bucky grabbed for his hand.

“Where are you going?” Bucky asked, knowing he sounded sullen and not caring. 

“To get you some water, and something to clean up with,” Steve replied, carefully pulling his hand from Bucky’s grip. He didn’t sound mad anymore, or even upset, he just sounded tired and kind of sad. In fact, now that Bucky got a good look at him, he could see things that he hadn’t been able to see through his earlier angry haze. Steve looked, well, bad, or at least as bad as Steve ever looked; he had dark circles under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in weeks, and his usually perfectly tailored suit was hanging a little loose on him. Bucky wondered if he was sick, or sad, or something else entirely.

“Oh,” he said, sitting up a little bit so he could see what Steve was doing. “Um, thanks.” 

Steve nodded, crossing his office to a small fridge that was carefully hidden among the wall cabinets. He got a bottle of water for each of them before opening a panel in the wall that Bucky hadn’t even _noticed_ before. Inside was a small bathroom because of course Steve had a private bathroom. Wouldn’t do to have the execs pissing with the plebs. (However, on this particular occasion, Bucky was cool with late stage capitalism because at least it gave them a modicum of privacy.) 

While Steve was busy, Bucky sat up all the way, stretching to pop his back and planting both feet on the floor. His pants felt disgusting; sticky and clammy, which was bringing back very embarrassing memories of making out behind a tree at a track meet and ruining his gym shorts. 

Steve emerged from the bathroom with a damp washcloth, to Bucky’s relief, and he brought it to him along with the water. “Thanks,” Bucky murmured, taking both items while Steve sat down on the couch again. It wasn’t the most dignified thing in the world, undoing his pants to clean up as much as he could, but the afternoon was not exactly an A+ effort for Bucky’s dignity in the first place. 

Steve hunched over, his elbows on his knees, and his gaze locked on the floor. When he spoke again, it made Bucky’s heart plummet. “Bucky, I’m sorry...” he said quietly.

“Please don’t do that,” Bucky said, cutting him off. “Not again. Don’t...please, Steve?” 

Steve hesitated, and instead of getting upset, he huffed out a small laugh. “Geez, Bucky,” he said, glancing in his direction. “Did it ever occur to you that you’re not the only one who’s figuring shit out about this situation?” 

Bucky was brought up short by the question because he’d never really thought about the fact that Steve might not be one hundred percent sure of himself at all times. He was _Steve Rogers_. He was perfect. Or, at least, Bucky had thought so. He bit his lip as he dropped the washcloth onto the glass-topped coffee table (ew), clearing his throat before speaking again. “Um…” he replied. “I guess not?”

That made Steve smile more, and he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Shocking,” he teased, before getting serious again. “The thing is...I am, Bucky. I’m figuring this out, same as you are. And I’m sorry my figuring it out has been hurting you. You had every right to call me an asshole.” He glanced at the closed office door and smirked. “Could have picked a better venue, but…” he shrugged. “I did lead you on, and I hurt you, and I really am sorry about that. I thought I could control it, that I could will myself into not wanting you. But that didn’t work, so I decided to cut you out completely, and I didn’t tell you I was doing it. That wasn’t fair, and I hope you can accept my apology.”

Another novel idea Bucky had never considered: Steve Rogers had been trying to control himself around _Bucky_ , as though Bucky were the one to be desired. That seemed insane, considering the fact that Bucky assumed Steve was always perfectly in control of everything, including every emotion he had ever felt. Ever. “So…” he replied in a small voice. “What does that mean?” 

Steve turned his body towards him, looking just as lost as Bucky felt, but with a small smile playing across his features. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t feel less guilty about my position, Bucky. I can’t change that, and I don’t like the idea of you being some dirty secret.” 

Bucky was quiet, thinking it over before speaking up again. “Don’t I get a vote?”

Steve, bless him, seemed genuinely surprised at the question, and he stammered out a response. “I...sure, pal, I’m sorry. Of course you do.”

The words spilled out of him quickly, because part of him worried he’d never get the chance again. “I like you, and I want you. I don’t care if we can’t tell the world. It’s just...I don’t know. Fucking. Or dating. Or whatever we make it. I’m not asking you to like...take out a newspaper announcement about the fact that you want me to suck your dick.” 

Steve’s eyes widened, which made Bucky laugh because Steve was kind of a prude for a guy who’d just been dry-humped on a fancy couch. He barreled on, figuring he might as well put it all out there. “I’m an adult, even if I’m not as old as you, and my vote is that I can’t stop thinking about you, and I don’t want to be mad at you anymore. I don’t want to yell at you in your office and piss you off. I want to be with you, and I don’t care how.” 

It was a lot, and he could see Steve taking it in, considering. The wait was impossibly long, so Bucky was sure Steve was just trying to figure out how to let him down gently. It surprised the hell out of him when Steve blew out a breath and nodded. “Alright,” he said. “We can try. Let’s call it a trial period, in fact.” 

Bucky nodded, scarcely able to believe it and honestly a little afraid Steve might take it back. “Yes!” he said immediately. “Yes, that’s fine, that’s perfect. I promise it’ll be okay, Steve, I swear it.” 

Steve smiled a little more, and Bucky knew he didn’t believe him. But he also didn’t say anything, choosing instead to lean across the space between them to plant a very sweet, very chaste kiss on Bucky’s lips. “You…” he said with an impish smile when he pulled back. “Look wrecked. You wanna go fix yourself up in the bathroom?” 

“Uh…” Bucky laughed, glancing down at the somewhat obvious damp patch on his pants. “Yeah, unless you’ve got a washing machine in there, not gonna work.”

Steve considered, and Bucky could see the gears turning in his head. It was kind of sexy. “You might be right,” he nodded. “So, change of plans - tell Maria you’re sick and going home. I’ll call you a car, then you can take the freight elevator and go out the loading dock. It’s how Tony used to get his dates out of the building.” Steve blanched. “Uh, you didn’t hear that from me. And this is a one time only offer. You come in your pants again, and I’ll make you walk around with it like a badge of honor, Barnes.” 

Bucky knew an empty threat when he heard one, and he grinned in spite of himself pulling out his phone to send a message to Maria. ( _So sick ate bad sushi blech g2g home see you tomorrow!)_ “Okay,” he agreed. “One-time deal got it. Thanks, Steve.” 

Steve nodded, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth, but when he spoke again, he sounded serious. “Speaking of things that aren’t cool, Bucky?” His tone held a warning, even if he sounded like someone’s dorky dad, so Bucky finished his message to Maria before looking up. “Don’t ever come up here half-cocked and angry again. I mean it. There’s a lot of bad behavior I can get away with, but you don’t have that luxury in your position. You’re lucky Danny’s discreet.” 

Bucky took the rebuke in stride, his cheeks going red as he nodded. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “I just...didn’t know how else to see you. You ignored me in the lobby this morning, and I guess I was madder than I thought.” 

“No shit,” Steve teased. “That much was obvious. And it’s not…” He sighed, one arm reaching out to pull Bucky closer so that his head was resting on Steve’s chest. That was nice. Bucky liked that a lot, especially the way he could hear the rumble of Steve’s voice vibrating through him as he continued speaking. “There are things you’re not privy to around here, kid, regardless of how close you are with your boss, or with me. And there are going to continue to be things I can’t discuss with you, okay?” 

Bucky nodded, and Steve kissed the top of his head before speaking again. “Yes, I was avoiding you, we’ve been over that. But I’ve also been traveling a lot this past month, and that has to do with my job and not you. I ignored you in the lobby because I was escorting a VIP to a meeting with Pepper and I didn’t have time for small talk.”

“Oh,” Bucky bit his lip, feeling kind of dumb. It was easy to forget how important Steve was, and the fact he had a whole life going on that Bucky neither understood nor was a part of. “I didn’t know that.”

“Because you didn’t need to know that,” Steve replied gently, reaching up to smooth a piece of hair away from Bucky’s forehead. He held his arm out a bit, checking the time on his expensive-looking watch and sighed. “Speaking of the VIP, I have a meeting in ten, which means I have five to get cleaned up and take care of this uh...little problem. Thanks for that, by the way.” He gestured to where the outline of his erection was still evident, if not quite as prominent as it had been a few minutes before. 

“I could…” Bucky offered, biting his lip and looking up.

That made Steve laugh, and he kissed Bucky’s forehead before shaking his head. “Not in five minutes you can’t, pal. Sit tight, I’m going to call you a car.” 

Bucky did, waiting patiently while Steve slipped into the bathroom to put himself back together before he called downstairs to request a car in the loading dock to take a sick employee home. (Bucky really did appreciate the fact that Steve wasn’t going to make him walk through the lobby with a jizz stain on his pants.)

“Car’ll be waiting by the time you get downstairs,” Steve said, offering Bucky a hand to pull him up. He took a second to fuss over him, fixing his hair to hide the bite marks on his neck and making sure his shirt and tie were buttoned up and straight. It gave Bucky a very interesting sensation in his stomach, which was fine. His feelings about Steve were perfectly fine now, which just gave him more butterflies. Ugh. _Butterflies_. Jesus.

“There,” Steve teased. “That’s as good as you’re going to get, Barnes.”

“Thanks,” Bucky replied, feeling bashful as he asked the next question. “When do I get to see you again?” 

Steve smiled, shrugging as he leaned in to give Bucky another infuriatingly chaste kiss. “Soon,” he said. “I promise I’ll be in touch. Don’t get impatient, okay? I have to travel again this week.”

“Okay,” Bucky said quietly. “I can wait.” 

“I know you can,” Steve replied. “Because you’re good, aren’t you?”

Bucky really, really wanted to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trial period, woo-hoo! What could possibly go wrong? 
> 
> Visuals for fun (I posted this initially on chapter three). Here's how I see [Steve's office](https://imgur.com/a/x9NRH). Desk setup in the first image, including the chairs, with the layout/sofas from the second image.
> 
> As always, if you want to join me in yelling loudly on Tumblr, I'm at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/) over there.


	11. May Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky ruminates on what 'soon' means; Steve fills in the blanks.

‘Soon’ could mean a lot of things.

It could mean the next day, or the next week, or the next month. Bucky had no way of knowing exactly what Steve meant by ‘soon,’ and that realization hit him like a punch in the gut when the town car dropped him at his building in Brooklyn.

The implication of ‘soon’ bothered him as he climbed the stairs, it bothered him as he peeled himself out of his epically gross and itchy pants, and it bothered him as he took a long, hot shower.

He was still bothered by it as he lay in bed that evening, staring up at the glow the streetlight outside his window cast on the ceiling. He was staring so intently, in fact, that he nearly jumped out of his skin when his phone vibrated on the bedside table.

“Jesus fuck,” he muttered, rolling over to grab it and set it to do-not-disturb when he saw the vibration had been caused by a new text.

 

_917-555-2272: Hi Bucky_

 

He didn’t recognize the number, and he wasn’t about to try and figure it out when another text came through.

 

_917-555-2272: It’s Steve. Didn’t want you to worry: I’m not forgetting about you._

 

Oh. That was a lot. Bucky would never admit it to anyone, but Steve’s words sent a little flutter of warmth through him, and he actually squirmed, biting his lip before moving quickly to add Steve’s number to his address book.

 _Thank you_ , he sent back. There wasn’t anything else for it: he’d needed to hear something from Steve, and he didn’t want to be overly effusive or weird about the gratitude he felt for the check in. So a simple thank you would have to do. _How’d you get my number?_ His personal phone number wasn’t in any of the public StarkTech directories, he was fairly sure.

Nothing for a few minutes, then another text popped up. _Used your phone to call my driver, remember? Asked him for your number. I’m a good detective._

That made Bucky smile, sending Steve a magnifying glass emoji before typing a response. _Pretty sneaky. Thanks for the ride today._

 

_You’re welcome. You got home safely?_

_Yes. Took a really long shower. Wish I had a washing machine for other necessary cleaning...thanks 4 that._

_Heard you can use borax for spunk stains. Never tried it but might be worth a shot._

_jesus that’s so responsible of you._

_I’d hate it if you ruined the pants - they look good on you. :)_

 

Ugh, with the fucking smileys. He had no idea how cute that was.

 

 _They look good off me too_ , he shot back because if Steve could flirt then Bucky could flirt harder.

_We’ll see, won’t we?_

 

Fucking Steve.

 

_I hope so...how soon is soon?_

_Soon is when I say soon is. Don’t pester. I’m going overseas tomorrow; can I text you sometimes?_

 

Who used a semicolon in a text? Steve Rogers, apparently. What a complete dork. Bucky loved it.

 

_You can text me whenever you want._

_Might take you up on that. Tired?_

_Little bit. Going for a run in the morning._

_Good. Go to sleep. I’ll be in touch._

_Better be. goodnight steve._

_Goodnight Bucky._

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

True to his word, Steve spent the ten days he was gone sending Bucky sporadic texts. They varied, everything from little messages saying hello or goodnight, to pictures of Steve’s food or something in a random airport. The snapshots never gave any actual insight into where he was, or what he was doing, but that was fine. He didn’t need to know the details.

Bucky, meanwhile, was ignoring Gus, blowing off Natasha, and diving back into his work with a renewed upbeat attitude. It didn’t suck, and Maria had even started praising him again.

“What’s got you so perky?” Wanda asked one day, looking over at him while he was grinning like an idiot at the picture Steve had sent him of a kayak on a rocky shore alongside the message: _going to do something stupid for the sake of the company. Avenge me_.

“Huh?” Bucky replied, startled as he looked up. “Oh uh...just a funny text.”

“Huh,” she echoed, smirking. “Lots of funny texts these days, James.”

“What are you implying, Maximoff?” he asked with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

“Nothing. Just...when you’re ready to tell me, I assume I’ll be privy to the information of who’s making you so happy,” she said.

It struck Bucky then that he’d never actually talked about Gus with Wanda, nor had he ever wanted to. Whereas with Steve, he was bursting at the seams to tell her everything, but he couldn’t. That certainly put a bit of a damper on his mood (well, that and the fact that he still didn’t know what he was going to do about the whole Gus situation, being that he was too much of a chickenshit to tell the guy he was seeing someone else). Bucky was a real champ at repressing crap like that, though, so he pushed it all down and texted Steve back instead.

 

_Be careful don’t need you coming home in pieces!_

 

(The next picture was of a nasty looking gash on Steve’s arm along with a very sad emoji and the explanation that he’d lost a fight with a rock when his kayak flipped. Bucky was less than pleased.)

* * *

He got a text from Steve on a Thursday morning, and he wasn’t sure if the man was back in the country yet but he knew it had been at least ten days since he’d gone away. The text was not terribly illuminating about his status, however.

 

_Can you be ready tomorrow night at 7:30? Wear a suit._

 

Of course he could be ready. He was even ninety percent sure his one good suit was clean. Granted, he did kind of have plans to go over to Quill’s house to listen to his band rehearse, but Quill’s band was terrible, and his apartment always smelled like cheese. Besides, Bucky already knew what they’d be playing: out-of-tune covers from the 70s. As usual. Quill could deal with him skipping out.

 

 _Yes_. _What are we doing?_

_Patience is a virtue, Bucky. Be outside your building at 7:30._

_FU Steve._

_Watch your mouth or I’ll watch it for you._

 

Bucky let the high of that little exchange carry him through the rest of the day, and the next evening he was standing outside of his building as instructed when a black SUV with tinted windows rolled up. The driver lowered the window and raised an eyebrow before speaking to him with a clipped British accent. “Mr. Barnes?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Monty, Mr. Rogers’ driver. He’s running a bit behind, so he asked me to pick you up.”

Oh. That was a little disappointing; Bucky had assumed Steve would be waiting in the car. But still, a free ride in a luxury SUV didn’t sound so bad. “Awesome, thank you.”

Monty was a professional, which meant he was going to get out and open the door for Bucky, even though Bucky protested that he could do it himself. The interior of the vehicle was just as sleek as the outside, with a fully-stocked minibar and a black box embellished with a white ribbon sitting on the seat when Bucky clambered in.

“A gift for you, sir,” Monty explained when he got back behind the wheel. “Mr. Rogers was insistent that you open it.”

“Okay,” Bucky agreed, pulling the box into his lap and pushing the ribbon off. He opened it to find an envelope sitting atop a pair of expensive looking khaki pants. He flushed at the gift, before noticing there was something underneath. Shifting the clothing to the side revealed a small box of borax underneath. Fucking Steve. Bucky tore open the note to find Steve’s neat handwriting.

> _Just in case._
> 
> _-SR_

Asshole. Bucky hated him. (But they were really nice pants, so...)

Monty pulled out onto the street as Bucky put his gift back in the box, glad the driver wasn’t going to get the joke. Or, at least, hoping Steve didn’t make a habit of telling his employees about what he did with his dates.

“You ought to make yourself a drink,” Monty offered. “We have a ways to go.”

“Oh, sure, thanks” Bucky nodded, reaching over for a glass and deciding ginger ale was the safest bet. He assumed they were going to Steve’s place; that made the most sense. It would be private and quiet, and Bucky was pretty sure sex was on the table, which sounded like a fantastic first date. “So how long have you been Steve’s driver?”

“Nearly seven years now,” Monty replied. “I mostly do evenings and weekends, and I’m on-call for emergencies. There’s a woman, Lorraine, who handles the day to day assignments.”

“Oh,” Bucky said, leaning forward so he could hear better since he would have felt weird just sitting back there in silence. “Do you like it?”

“I do,” he replied. “Mr. Rogers is an excellent employer. He helped me get settled here in the States and secured a green card for me. He also remembers when my children have birthdays, and he usually reminds me of my anniversary before I’ve even thought to get a gift.”

Bucky nodded; that did sound like Steve.

“So please understand when I tell you that I’m careful,” Monty said, glancing into the rearview mirror to meet Bucky’s eyes. “And I’m discreet.” He said it pointedly. Bucky hadn’t been worried about it before, but it struck him suddenly just how many people in Steve’s life could potentially be after something or trying to exploit the man. It made him wonder if Monty thought Bucky was someone trying to do just that, which seemed ludicrous but, well, the guy didn’t know Bucky from Adam.

“Sure,” Bucky said with a nod. “Me too. Steve’s a great guy.”

He was starting to feel like Monty was giving him some weird protective-of-Steve version of a shovel talk and he wanted to change the subject. “So uh...do you follow soccer, or, I mean uh...football?” he offered, for lack of anything else to say.

As it turned out, Monty did, and he spent the next twenty minutes discussing the finer points of the game with Bucky. Despite the excellent conversation it dawned on him eventually that they weren’t heading into the city. In fact, as Monty pulled onto the BQE, Bucky realized with a certainty that they were heading further out to Queens instead.

“Uh...aren’t we going to Manhattan?” he asked, not bothering to hide his confusion.

“We are not,” Monty replied. “Mr. Rogers was quite clear on your destination this evening, Mr. Barnes.”

Well, that didn’t help. Now all Bucky could do was speculate until Monty pulled off the interstate and started navigating the car through a maze of streets in a neighborhood Bucky had never seen before. The driver came to a stop in the middle of a tree-lined block, and now he was more confused than ever. Did Steve have a house in Queens or something?  

“You’ll want to head through the blue door to your right,” Monty said, and Bucky had to wonder if the guy was trying not to smirk. It kind of sounded like he was. “You can leave your gift - I’ll be taking you home later.”

“That’s...thanks, so, do I tip you, or…?” Bucky felt his ears burning; he had no idea how to act in these situations, and Monty was a hard guy to get a read on.

“That’s not necessary sir,” he replied smoothly, getting out and coming around to let Bucky out.

As Bucky approached the blue door in question, he realized that there _was_ a tiny sign mounted to the wall. _L'étoile. Reservations required_. Well, that was fucking pretentious. Bucky loved it, sort of. Just as he was about to pull the door open, it swung out to meet him, held open by a woman in a short black dress and high heels. “Mr. Barnes?” she greeted. “Your party is waiting for you. Follow me, please.”

Once he was through the door, Bucky realized that L'étoile was just a restaurant, albeit a small one, tucked away in a converted brownstone. There were intimate tables in dark corners, and it was a place that seemed to cater to a clientele with deep pockets and expensive tastes. The woman brought Bucky up a flight of stairs to the second floor, where the tables were even more sparse and secluded, leading him to the one where Steve sat waiting.

“Bucky,” Steve greeted warmly, getting to his feet, as though this wasn’t one of the weirdest things Bucky had ever done. The hostess disappeared silently, and the two of them were left alone.

“Hi Steve,” he said, “this is...um...what’s going on?” Steve’s face fell, just a little, and Bucky felt like an asshole. “I mean, this is so nice! But...it’s...all the mystery and...are those for me?”

He’d just noticed the flowers on the table, sitting off to one side. Bucky would never admit it, but the idea of someone buying him flowers had always appealed. Especially a bouquet as beautiful as that one, sitting in its own vase. Fuck, he’d never even owned a vase, and the thought that Steve had picked something like that out for him brought a pleased smile to his face.

“Those are for you,” Steve replied. “Have a seat, I’ll explain.” He then proceeded to _pull Bucky’s chair out for him_ which was officially the best thing anyone had ever done. Bucky sat, and Steve moved back to his own side. “I’m sorry for all the cloak and dagger. I just got back this afternoon, and I meant to come and get you myself, but I barely had time to get here from the airport.”

“Oh,” Bucky realized, feeling a bit better about the strangeness of the clandestine pickup. “Aren’t you jet-lagged?”

“A little bit,” Steve said. “But I didn’t want to miss the chance to see you.”

There was that stupid, funny feeling in his stomach again.

“The thing is,” Steve continued, his expression turning serious, which Bucky shouldn’t have found as cute as he did. “I was thinking a lot about what you said - how you didn’t care if you were my secret. I decided I hate that idea. I can’t date you exactly the way I’d like to, but I do want to date you. Properly. I heard about this place from a friend, and I think it’s far enough outside the city that we aren’t likely to be spotted by anyone from work. I want to find more places like this, too. Because I like you, Bucky, and I don’t like the idea of hiding you away all the time.”

Steve Rogers, as it turned out, was a pretty romantic guy.

“Uh…” Bucky managed, which was absolutely the most eloquent response he could have come up with. A+, pure class. “I...yeah. This is awesome. I thought you were just gonna, you know, bring me over to your place and…” he shrugged, making a circle with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and using his right index finger to poke through it. The gesture made Steve snort, and he shook his head.

“Jesus, Bucky, you are the height of propriety,” he said. “No, we’re saving that for later.”

“Like...after dinner later?” Bucky asked with a hopeful smile, although he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

“No,” Steve laughed. “Like, when I’ve had the chance to romance you properly later. And when I don’t smell like an airport.” He paused, reaching out for his water and taking a sip. “And when you’re desperate.”

Steve Rogers was a romantic and a _tease_. Bucky opened his mouth to say something smart but was saved by their waiter who appeared with a bottle of wine. Steve, an asshole, instructed the man to pour the first taste for Bucky. Considering that Bucky’s tastes in wine extended to occasionally getting the five dollar bottle from Trader Joe’s, he had no idea what he was doing when he sipped from the glass and shrugged. “Uh...sure?”

“Very good, sir,” the waiter responded before pouring a scant amount into each of their glasses. “Your first course will be out soon.”

“You ordered for me?” Bucky asked once he was gone, unsure if he liked that or not.

“It’s a tasting menu,” Steve said simply.

“I don’t know what that means,” he replied, maybe the tiniest bit of frustration creeping into his tone.

A flash of guilt crossed Steve’s face, and he reached out to cover Bucky’s hand with his own. “It just means you don’t pick - they bring you different things to try, that’s all.” He hesitated, and when he spoke again, he sounded guilty. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be...I just thought you were cute with the wine.”

“You don’t mean to be what?” Bucky pressed, his annoyance dimming somewhat as he studied Steve’s expression.

“Excessive?” Steve offered. “I like being able to treat people, see their reactions to stuff. But I don’t want to embarrass you, Bucky, honestly. I really do think you’re cute, trying new stuff.”

“I’m not _cute_ ,” Bucky huffed. “Just because I don’t know how to taste wine…”

“The thing is, though?” Steve interrupted. “Nobody really does, we’re all just pretending and blowing smoke up each other’s asses. I wanted to treat you tonight, that’s all. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, though. I was new to all of this, too, once. I know how it is.”

Bucky relaxed a bit, but not entirely. “If you say so,” he shrugged. Steve was so at-ease in fancy situations that Bucky couldn’t imagine him being some nervous kid.

“Scout’s honor,” Steve said with a smirk. “The first time I was invited to a formal dinner, I didn’t even think about the fact that it wasn’t de rigueur to finish my soup by picking the bowl up to slurp it. Or use an oyster fork to clean my ears.”

“Oh come on,” Bucky laughed. “You’re not a cartoon hillbilly, Rogers, I don’t believe that for one second.”

Steve smirked and shrugged, reaching for his wine with his free hand. “Guess you’ll never know.”

Steve’s charm and affability meant that Bucky’s initial discomfort with the restaurant faded by the time the food started coming out. It didn’t hurt that everything presented to them was to die for - tiny portions of perfectly crafted dishes kept appearing as if by magic and every bite had Bucky wishing he had a whole plateful.

Beyond the food, it turned out he and Steve had a lot in common outside of their mutual, explosive attraction. They were baseball fans, dog people, and movie aficionados. Steve was a big nerd who really liked _Game of Thrones_ (“I watch it on planes, I never see it live”), while Bucky preferred shows he could get through his Netflix subscription since HBO was prohibitively expensive.

“Maybe we can watch it together sometime,” Steve said casually, as though that didn’t make Bucky’s heart just about leap from his chest.

They got down to the brass tacks of their favorite superheroes (Wonder Woman for Steve, Batman for Bucky) as well as when they’d each known they were queer. As the evening wore on, Bucky was shocked to discover that a first date with Steve Rogers was almost exactly like any other good first date would be. It quelled the fears he’d had about whether or not they’d even like each other without the illicitness and the tension.

“So what’s your, you know, history?” Bucky asked, taking a sip of his second glass of wine as their waiter walked away with course number six.

“My history?” Steve repeated, cocking his head to the side in a way that reminded Bucky of a confused golden retriever.

“With, you know. Your relationship history. With Peggy. And stuff,” he stammered, knowing even as he said it that it was probably kind of weird he knew about her.

Steve wasn’t going to let him get away with it, either, raising an eyebrow. “How do you know about Peggy?”

“Heh...it’s...on your Wikipedia page?” he said, lamely, shrugging his shoulders.

“Huh,” Steve said, as though that were a very interesting piece of information he was filing away for later. “Well, it’s a long story, but the short version is that Peg and I met when she came to StarkTech from England. Tony’s dad, Howard? He recruited her straight out of Oxford - she was one of the last hires he ever made personally. She and I came up the ranks together, and we just…” he smiled, looking a touch wistful. “We loved each other. Love each other. But we also drove each other crazy, wanted different things. So we called off the engagement a couple months before the wedding. These days I’d call her my best friend.” He locked eyes with Bucky, regarding him carefully. “Nothing to be jealous of, though.”

“I wasn’t…” Bucky protested.

“Some people are,” Steve continued. “Couple people I’ve been with since Peggy don’t understand. They assume the worst. So I’m just telling you now: it’s not like that with us.”

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Understood.”

Steve nodded, smiling and reaching across to squeeze Bucky’s hand again, “how about you? Anyone I should be jealous of?”

Gus’ face sprang into Bucky’s mind, and he pushed the thought away, choosing instead to answer the question as generically as possible. (Gus was _not_ his boyfriend. They were _not_ exclusive. He had no reason to feel bad.) “Not really,” he admitted. “I’ve had, I don’t know, three boyfriends? But they all lasted like two months. Not even that, if I’m being honest.” He shrugged, giving Steve a wry smile. “I’m probably defective. You should get a different model.”

“Hey,” Steve said, frowning. “You’re not defective.”

Bucky was so used to his self-deprecation being brushed aside that Steve’s earnestness caught him off-guard. He blushed, looking down at the table. “Sorry,” he said quietly, “Don’t you think it’s kind of weird that I haven’t had a real relationship yet, though?”

“I didn’t meet Peggy until I was twenty-three,” Steve pointed out.

That was somewhat reassuring, Bucky decided, as the waiter appeared with yet another course. There were ten in all, and he was surprised to find himself pleasantly full, but not uncomfortably so by the time they finished the final dessert portion.

“I’m going to call Monty, get him to pull around for you,” Steve said because apparently, he’d already taken care of the check. Another fancy restaurant perk.

“You’re not coming with me?” Bucky asked, knowing he sounded mildly put-out.

Steve’s expression softened, and Bucky felt a little bad since he knew the guy was tired from traveling all day. “I hadn’t planned on it - but if you want me to, of course I will.”

“You don’t have to…” he replied, feeling stupid for making a fuss.

“Believe me, Bucky, spending a little extra time with you before sleeping off this jet-lag is not something I’m complaining about,” he teased. “No funny business, though. I’m not sleeping over, so don’t ask.”

“I wasn’t…!” Bucky reconsidered. “Okay, maybe I was, but now I’m not going to.”

Forty minutes later, they pulled up in front of Bucky’s building. Steve had been a perfect gentleman in the car, holding his hand the entire ride. Once they came to a stop, Steve opened the door, hopping out and reaching up to take Bucky’s present and flowers before offering a hand to help him out. “Can you circle the block?” Steve asked Monty.

“Of course,” Monty said with a nod. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Barnes.”

“Sure thing, you too,” Bucky nodded, thinking a lot more about the fact that Steve had gotten out of the car with him than saying goodnight to the man’s driver.

“Don’t even ask,” Steve teased.

“I wasn’t gonna! I just...want to thank you for my present. And my flowers. I didn’t do that before. So...thanks.” He shrugged, wanting to properly show his gratitude, which came in the form of reaching up and pulling Steve to him by the lapels of his suit jacket. He kept the kiss light, despite his body’s best efforts. After all, he wanted it to be a first date kiss. A _real_ first date kiss. He let Steve go after a moment, smiling and reaching for his stuff. “Thanks for dinner, Steve.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, regarding Bucky with a fond expression.

“Will you text me when you get home?”

“Might even text you before that.”

Bucky was most definitely on cloud nine as he floated up the stairs towards his apartment. He had to juggle the box and the flowers while he unlocked all three deadbolts, but he was pretty sure nothing could spoil his good mood.

Until he saw Natasha sitting on the couch near the front window, where she had a perfectly good view of the street. She didn’t look pleased.

“Hey, Bucky,” she said. “Gus sure turned into Steve Rogers since I last saw him, huh?”

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this set of images when I first had Steve come to Bucky's apartment. But I forgot. So here, have it now: [Bucky and Natasha's apartment](https://imgur.com/a/s1LBp). Everything except the weirdo leopard print blanket, and the couch is more of an actual couch and less of a futon since they got it from Bucky's parents. 
> 
> Shameless Tumblr plugs: I'm at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/) over there.


	12. False Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky tries maturity and common-sense on for size.

Bucky panicked, unsure of what tone to strike as he took in Natasha’s posture. She was sitting with her back straight, her eyes tracking his every movement; she was a live wire, and Bucky wasn’t sure when the last time was he’d seen her that upset.

“Oh come on...I mean, it’s not like Gus and I are exclusive,” he said flippantly, deciding that casual and irreverent was the way to go as he closed the door behind him.

“Does Gus know that?” Natasha replied, her voice tight.

“Yes, he’s aware he’s not my boyfriend,” Bucky said defensively, annoyed with her for ruining what had been a perfect night. He scowled as he put his things down on the island, not meeting her eyes.

“Oh?” she said. “You told him you were going out with your boss, then?”

“Steve’s not my boss.”

“Jesus, I didn’t know you were this good with semantics, Bucky. Not-my-boyfriend, not-my-boss, you’ve got the whole thing figured out,” she replied with a snort.

“Shut up,” he snapped back, annoyed with himself for not having a better retort. (And that he knew she was right.)

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes.

“I can tell you to shut up if I want to tell you to shut up!”

“Mature,” she replied. “But I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Bucky repeated, his voice rising. “It’s not your fucking business, Natasha, so back off.”

Her nostrils flared, and for the briefest second, he could have sworn he saw hurt flash across her features. She schooled her expression quickly, though, getting to her feet. “I guess not.” She didn’t say anything else, just crossed to her room and shut the door behind her.

Fuck. Double fuck.

Bucky wasn’t going to feel bad about it, though. Natasha could be a judgmental jerk if she wanted to, he hadn’t done _anything wrong_. Nope. He was going to go to bed and dream about Steve, and Natasha could just butt out.

Except he couldn’t fall asleep. He lay in bed an hour later, tossing and turning; even one last text from Steve ( _sleep tight_ ) hadn’t put his mind at ease. Because he hadn’t told Natasha about Steve before, and he told Natasha everything. She knew all his secrets but he’d kept that one from her, and now he couldn’t really put his finger on why. Why hadn’t he hadn’t told her about Steve coming to their apartment, or Steve kissing him on his birthday, or the whole incident in Steve’s office? With anyone else, Natasha would have been the first person he confessed everything to.

Because the thing about Natasha and Bucky was that yes, she was overly-curious at times, but she was the best person in the world at helping him figure shit out. She could have done that with Steve, yet he hadn’t told her. And when he really dug down, really thought about it, he knew exactly why: he felt guilty, and he hadn’t wanted her to be ashamed of him. So he’d hurt her instead, which made him feel sick.

Pulling himself out of bed, he padded back out to the living room and walked the two feet that would bring him to her closed door. He knocked, biting his lip. “Nat?”

“I’m sleeping,” came her response.

“Tasha, please…” he tried again.

There was nothing for a few moments before he heard her sigh. “Fine.”

Bucky pushed the door open, finding Natasha curled up in bed with her Kindle illuminating her face in the dark room. She looked nonchalant, with a practiced ‘I don’t give a fuck’ posture, but Bucky knew her well enough to know that she might have been crying. Just a little bit.

“Tasha, I’m sorry,” he said, biting his lip and leaning against her doorframe. “I shoulda told you. About Steve.”

She regarded him coolly for a moment, not saying anything before she put down her book and lifted up the covers, a clear invitation to join her. Bucky knew it was a peace offering because Natasha had softer sheets and a fluffier comforter and her bed smelled like sunshine while his smelled like feet. He clambered in while she shifted so that they were face to face, pulling the covers over their heads. Bucky didn’t even mind that his feet stuck out the bottom because he’d always loved talking to her in the dark. They’d been doing it since college.

“You better start from the beginning,” she said quietly.

So he told her. He explained everything from the elevator ride to the date; when he’d finished, he fell silent, studying her reaction in the dim light that filtered into their little cocoon from the streetlamp outside.

“I guess I wasn’t taking you that seriously when you were going on about him after the Christmas party,” she admitted. “I thought you were just being stupid. Or that it was another crush.”

Bucky shrugged. “I was being stupid, and it was another crush. Or that’s how it was before. But now...I really like him a lot, Nat.”

“He’s older than you, Yasha,” she said, her voice holding a warning. “I know you know that but…” She shrugged, her gaze drifting for a moment, and it reminded Bucky she had her own secrets. “That can be hard.”

“I know,” he said, thinking through what he wanted to convey for a moment. “But when I’m with him it’s not like...weird. We have so much in common the age thing doesn’t matter.”

That made her smile in spite of herself, and she bit her lip before asking the next obvious question. “What about work?”

“What about it?”

“You said it yourself - you guys can’t be public while he has the job he has and you have the job you have,” she hesitated. “You love that job, Bucky. And you’re the one with something to lose.”

“Steve said that, too.” (The fact that Steve and Natasha both thought the same protective thoughts about him most definitely did not give him a weird sensation in his stomach. Nope.)

“Steve’s not wrong,” she replied.

“Yeah, I guess. But I’m not thinking about that yet. I don’t even know what I want to do with my life or my career or any of it. I don’t have to work at StarkTech forever, you know?”

She nodded, reaching out to take his hand and push their fingers together before asking the question Bucky knew was coming. The question he still didn’t have the answer to.

“What about Gus?”

Bucky shrugged, squirming and hoping she might drop the subject entirely. “Dunno.”

“How do you think he’d feel if he knew where you were tonight?” she asked, frowning.

“He’d…” Bucky sighed. “It’d hurt him. I’m not oblivious...I know he feels differently about me than I do about him.” And deep down he knew he’d been taking advantage of that, keeping Gus on the line but refusing to either pull him in or release him.

“Yeah,” Natasha agreed. “You have to tell him, Bucky.”

“I can’t!”

“I’m not saying tell him everything. But you have to end it, okay? Break things off. You owe that much to him, don’t you think?”

He was quiet for a minute before nodding, embarrassed that she’d needed to point it out. Even more embarrassed by how easy it would be for him to just ghost the guy without an explanation. And how often that thought had crossed his mind during the conversation. “I hate this,” he sighed. “Can you do it for me?”

“What?” she replied with a smirk. “You’ve got the balls to walk into Steve’s office and yell at him like an idiot, but you can’t let a good guy down easy? That’s bullshit, Bucky. You want a grown-up thing with Steve, you have to act like a grown-up.”

Bucky knew it was true and he hated that it was, too. So he sighed, turning to hide his face against the pillow. “Can I sleep in here?” he asked, his voice muffled.

“Yes,” she replied, “but you have to call Gus in the morning and set something up.”

* * *

Bucky asked Gus to meet him for coffee on Sunday because Natasha had insisted it was only fair to break the news to him in person. Bucky wished it were fair for him to be a chickenshit and do it over the phone, but she had a point. Being a grown-up was hard.

Gus had been happy to see him, hugging him and kissing his cheek as he talked about how excited he was to be starting his internship and having more time to spend with Bucky that summer. That made it worse, and Bucky hadn’t been sure it _could_ get worse, but the universe loved proving him wrong. He understood the end of Old Yeller in a very real way when he cut Gus off mid-stream.

“I um...this has...okay I’ve had so much fun with you,” he said, his words running together as he looked up to meet Gus’ eyes. Only seemed fair to look him in the eyes before he shot him. “But I just...I don’t...this isn’t working for me and...I’m really sorry.”

To say Gus looked blindsided would have been an understatement. The shock was evident on his face while he processed the news before blurting out a question. “Is there somebody else?”

(Yes. He’s wonderful. He’s not you.)

“No,” Bucky said instead because he couldn’t bring himself to hurt the guy further. “I just...I know you want to get more serious and I um...I don’t see that for us. And I don’t want to keep doing this to you. You’re...such a great guy.”

Gus looked like he was about to protest and Bucky piped up again. Gus _was_ a great guy, he just wasn’t Bucky’s guy. “I mean that. You...somebody’s going to be so lucky to get you, and I want you to be able to meet them. I’m sorry. I really am.”

It might have been easier if Gus had gotten angry; if he’d yelled or knocked something off the table or told Bucky to fuck off. At least then Bucky could have written him off as an asshole. But Gus wasn’t that person; he was kind and good, and he hadn’t done anything to deserve being dumped in a coffee shop on a Sunday morning. “Is there uh...could I have done anything differently?”

Oh. Bucky’s heart hurt a little bit at that. “No,” he said immediately, and that much was true. “You were...you’ve been wonderful. This is me, it’s all me, honestly. I’m really sorry.”

Gus was hurt; Bucky couldn’t blame him. It became apparent that he wasn’t interested in sticking around and rehashing the relationship, though, when he got to his feet, hands shaking a little bit as he picked up his coffee cup. “Well,” he said. “I...I can’t say I’m not a little confused. I thought things were going well. But I don’t want to fight with you about it, Bucky. I think I ought to go.”

Bucky nodded, getting to his feet as well, pushing down the sick feeling that threatened to overwhelm him. He’d never had to break up with anyone before, and it sucked. It sucked that Gus was being nice about it, all the while looking like he was going to cry. It sucked that Bucky got to go home and text Steve to plan a date while Gus got to go home and be sad. He hated himself for putting that expression on Gus’ face because no, he wasn’t Steve Rogers, but he’d been pretty great all the same. Maybe better than Bucky deserved.

“This is so stupid but...can I give you a hug?” Gus asked as he blinked a couple of times. Bucky blurted out a “sure,” partly out of guilt and partly because he was afraid he might cry if he saw Gus start crying and being the guy who cried while dumping his not-boyfriend was just an extra level of shitty.

So he let Gus hug him, using the few seconds of the embrace to get his emotions in check before the other man pulled away. “I’ll see you around, Bucky,” he said before turning to go. Bucky nodded, watching him walk away and letting out a shaky sigh before sitting back down at the table and rubbing a hand over his face. He let himself cry after that, just a little, before pulling out his phone to text Natasha.

 

_Done :(_

_Good. Sorry. Did it go ok?_

_He was rlly nice. Nicer than I deserve._

_You did the right thing. Come home I’ll scratch your head and we can watch Simpsons._

_Omw_

 

Bucky was halfway to the subway when his phone pinged again. He glanced down, expecting a text from Natasha asking him to pick up food on the way home. Instead, it was from Steve, as though he’d somehow been cosmically aware of Bucky’s shitty morning and knew just the right time to get in touch. He didn’t deserve Steve or feeling nice right then, but he was going to let Steve be nice to him anyway.

 

_Hi handsome, how’s your Sunday?_

 

Bucky considered a slew of potential responses, from “total fucking bullshit” to a series of skull and vomit emojis. He went for the less dramatic option. _Ok. Kind of missing you._

 

_Just kind of? ;)_

 

There were, Bucky realized, few things he could count on in this world. Steve Rogers sending dorky smiley faces was one of them.

 

_ok lots missing you_

_Planning something for next weekend. Hold Saturday for me?_

 

Suddenly, a week seemed like an eternity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, adulting! For those of you who have enjoyed Gus, he may or may not be back in some form before this thing is over. Who's to say? 
> 
> Chapter name comes from Laura Marling's [song of the same name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-NjF9RuhOw). Not perfectly applicable, but it sets the right tone. 
> 
> And the usual visuals-slash-plugging: [Bucky and Natasha's apartment](https://imgur.com/a/s1LBp). Shameless Tumblr plug: I'm at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/) over there.


	13. Garlic Knots and Pad Thai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second dates are fine. Third dates are finer. Bucky can see the merits of both.

Steve took Bucky to a family-owned pizza place in Canarsie for their second date. He bought them each two slices, along with a heaping portion of garlic knots, before they tucked themselves into a booth with copious amounts of napkins.

“I worked at a place like this as a teenager,” Steve said, folding his first slice in half and taking a bite, the cheese dripping when he pulled it away.

“Really?” Bucky replied, inching his foot out to meet Steve’s under the table because he wasn’t above playing footsie.

“You sound so surprised,” he laughed, putting down his pizza and reaching for his beer. “Yeah, it was a place in Carroll Gardens.”

“Fancy,” Bucky said, teasing Steve a little because Carroll Gardens was a nicer part of Brooklyn than he could afford. He and Natasha barely made rent as it was, and their neighborhood was less than wonderful.

Steve shrugged, his expression changing slightly to one that was a bit wistful and maybe a bit sad. “Not especially. We lived in Red Hook, which wasn’t as nice back then. My ma’s place was rent-controlled, too. Otherwise, we never would have been able to afford it.”

“Oh,” Bucky realized. Of course Carroll Gardens hadn’t always been the gentrified, overpriced area it was now. Hell, plenty of Red Hook was still pretty scary, especially down by the Gowanus. “My folks live over near Gravesend. That’s where I grew up.”

“Not so fancy,” Steve teased. “Though I guess it’s fancier these days.”

“Yeah...not so fancy,” Bucky agreed. “I mean, my folks do fine, but...they’re pissed about those yuppie mansions going in and fucking up everyone’s property taxes. Plus everyone’s so conservative over there now, it drives my ma crazy. She started flying a giant PFLAG banner out the window to piss them off.”

That made Steve laugh, one of those real laughs that came from deep down inside him and lit up his whole face. “Good for your ma,” he said when he’d recovered, his foot finding Bucky’s more definitively under the table. “So they know? No shitty, judgy family?”

“Nah,” he shrugged. “I got the three sisters, came out to Becca when I was fifteen, told my parents a year later. They’re progressive people, you know? My dad’s on the borough board, and he’s always trying to push people to be less shitty. I mean, I’ve got some asshole uncles who’re still afraid of gay people but...everyone’s got asshole uncles.”

“I don’t,” Steve smiled. “But I take your point.”

“No uncles, or no uncles who are assholes?” Bucky asked, picking up his pizza again. It was delicious, way better than the crappy pizza place that he and Nat ordered from a lot because they were lazy and it was cheap. This pizza was hot, the cheese to crust to sauce ratio was on point, and the dough was delicious. Steve, it seemed, had good taste both in pizza and in fine dining, which Bucky could respect.

“Ah, the former,” Steve said with a smile and a shrug. “Both my folks were only children. I think my dad had some cousins, but he died when I was little and my ma didn’t know his extended family that well.”

Bucky frowned, reaching for his beer. He knew he liked Steve and that they had a lot in common, but they didn’t know one another very well yet. He hoped that would change because he wanted to know everything about the other man, from his favorite color to the toothpaste brand he preferred. “How little?”

“Ah…” Steve reached up, rubbing the back of his neck the way he tended to do when he was uncomfortable. “Before I was born, actually. He was in the military, deployed while my ma was pregnant and…” He sighed, not meeting Bucky’s eyes as he studied the table. “Just because it’s peacetime doesn’t mean there aren’t casualties.”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said quietly. “That’s really hard.”

Steve sighed again before forcing a little smile as he lifted his gaze. “It’s probably better I never knew him; nothing to miss when you don’t have anything to compare it to. Ma, though, he was the love of her life. I know she tried dating again but…”

Bucky nodded, picking up a garlic knot. “She must be crazy proud of you, though, right?”

Another pause. Steve broke their gaze again, huffing a pained laugh and shaking his head. “So uh...I hope she would be. She died when I was eighteen - never exactly had the chance to show her.”

“Steve…”

“I don’t like to talk about it, Bucky,” he said quietly, cutting him off. It wasn’t meant unkindly, but it was firm, and Bucky wasn’t about to disrespect Steve’s wishes. So he nodded, smiling and deciding that the easiest thing to do was to change the subject.

“So you gonna tell me about your first kiss or what?”

* * *

Bucky got ambitious for their third date, asking Steve if he wanted to come over on a Saturday night and watch movies on Netflix. He wondered if Steve knew about Netflix and chill, but decided that he was probably too old and important to know about such base things. But date three _was_ the sex date. Everybody knew that. Probably even Steve Rogers. And Bucky was ready.

Steve agreed to a Saturday night when Natasha would be out late, if not all night. He had the caveat that Bucky let him bring dinner, which Bucky wasn’t about to argue with because he both hated cooking and was terrible at it, leaving a burned mess behind him nearly every time. He spent most of the day on Saturday furiously cleaning the apartment, including washing his sheets at the laundromat and spraying his bedroom down with Febreeze. Which, yes, was ridiculous because Steve had been in the apartment before, but Bucky was going to _seduce_ him, and seduction meant washing the sheets.

Once he was satisfied his home was as sex-prepared as possible, he settled on the couch to wait. He was in the middle of a very good round of Candy Crush when a text came through from Steve.

 

_So srry, flight just got in, I’ll be a little late. Coming from JFK now, getting food on the way._

 

Bucky deflated, sighing as he typed back a _no problem see you soon!_ before tossing the phone down on the couch, game forgotten. He allowed himself to wallow for exactly one minute. Dating Steve meant seeing him for longer periods of time on those occasions they were together, but it was nearly a month into their trial period, and they were only just having their third date. Granted, Steve traveled a lot and they were careful to avoid one another at work, so it was easy to feel like things were moving at a glacial pace. He wasn’t upset, exactly; he’d known what he was signing up for. But still, it was harder than he’d expected.

The buzzer rang about forty minutes after Steve’s original arrival time, and Bucky bounced up from the couch, hitting the intercom. “Hi, I’ll buzz you in,” he chirped, pressing the button to unlock the downstairs doors. He stepped out of the apartment and into the hallway to wait, a grin spreading across his face when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He couldn’t help it - Steve made him smile.

“Hi,” he grinned as Steve’s handsome face stepped into view. He looked good, if a little rumpled, in a pair of jeans and a button-down.

“I coulda been a serial killer, Bucky,” Steve replied, smirking as he traversed the hall to where Bucky stood before leaning down for a quick kiss. “You shouldn’t buzz people up until you’re sure.”

Bucky snorted, pushing open the door to the apartment and letting Steve in. “Thanks, gramps,” he replied, which got him a ‘hey!’ and a light swat on the arm.

“Don’t sass me, pal,” Steve smirked, knocking off his shoes in the entryway. “I’m only looking out for your best interests.”

“Uh huh,” Bucky nodded, distracted by the takeout bag Steve was holding in his left hand (as he’d needed the right one for arm-swatting purposes). “What’d you bring me?”

“Rude and impatient,” Steve teased, a smirk crossing his face. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“Feed me?”

So Steve did, sending Bucky to wait on the couch while he figured out where the plates and the utensils were. Bucky protested that he could help, damn it, but Steve dismissed him with a wave which was _ridiculous_ because it was Bucky’s kitchen. (Incidentally, he was very proud of the fact that he and Natasha had an entire set of matching dinnerware, purchased for ten dollars exactly from a flea market. Granted, it was puce colored and from the seventies, but the stuff held food and cleaned up easily.)

“Do you like spring rolls?” Steve asked, opening one of the containers and filling the apartment with the smell of something delicious and spicy and, oh, it was definitely Thai food. Bucky loved Thai food. Steve was magic.

“Uh, no,” he replied. “I’m actually allergic to like...peanuts. And shrimp. And gluten. And I don’t eat plants that I think have achieved sentience, so…”

“So air, then?” Steve smirked. “You’re a dirty liar, Bucky Barnes.”

“What are you gonna do about it?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows.

Steve harrumphed, smiling to himself as he started arranging food on the plates, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like, “start a fucking list.”

Bucky squirmed, briefly wondering if he was supposed to find Steve’s idle threats so appealing then deciding it wasn’t worth concerning himself with thoughts like that. “Can I at least get us drinks?” It was driving him crazy not to be doing anything.

Bucky was pretty sure he was going to say no, but to his eternal surprise, Steve shrugged. “Sure, I can’t carry everything.”

“Cool. Beer?” Bucky had been very careful to note what Steve drank at the pizza place and had bought a six pack of the same beer on his way home the night before.

“Mmm,” Steve agreed. He brought the plates to the couch, along with both chopsticks and forks (which Bucky thought was considerate, because Steve was apparently a very considerate guy). Bucky got the beers, popping the lid off each before joining his date.

Steve glanced at the bottle, then at Bucky. “You like this stuff?”

Bucky shrugged, knowing he probably looked bashful. He hated that his blush could give him away so transparently. “I mean, I haven’t had it before. But you drank it the other night and...I figured you liked it, so…”

Steve’s face softened before he leaned over and gave Bucky an honest-to-God kiss on the forehead. “Thank you,” he murmured, sending a shiver down Bucky’s spine that made him want to look up and kiss Steve for the rest of his life, maybe, and then for the rest of eternity.

“It’s just beer,” he mumbled instead, his cheeks continuing to flush red, “anyway, you brought dinner. It looks really good.”

Steve didn’t push it, for which Bucky was grateful. Leaning forward, he pulled his laptop closer and opened Netflix. He and Natasha had gotten fancy with a StarkStream that they used to beam stuff from their laptops to the small television they’d inherited from Quill (for a modest fifty dollars). They weren’t about to spend money on cable, after all, but the dongle for the HDMI port seemed a reasonable expense for entertainment.

“We’re watching E.T.,” Bucky declared in a tone that brokered no argument as he sat back and picked up his plate.

“Oh yeah?” Steve replied, sounding bemused. “If you say we are, then I guess we are.”

“We are.” He’d spent almost an hour flipping through Netflix before settling on E.T., deciding it was a good date movie because everyone had seen it before, but it was one of those movies you could watch a million times over and not hate. At the same time, the fact that it was old and classic meant that if things like sex happened in the middle of the movie, Bucky wouldn’t feel weird about making them miss the ending.

They settled in to watch, finding a comfortable closeness despite the food balanced on their laps. Steve found subtle ways of touching Bucky, he’d noticed, pressing their thighs together or brushing his hair back from his shoulder. It didn’t suck.

The mountain of pad thai eventually dwindled to a mere hill, and Bucky stood up to clear the plates. He spent a couple minutes wiping the dishes down so he could wash them later, all the while sneaking glances at the couch. Steve seemed engrossed in the movie, but every so often Bucky swore he caught him looking back out of the corner of his eye.

When he headed back to the couch, Steve glanced up at him, shifting his weight and holding out an arm. “C’mere.”

Bucky didn’t have to be asked twice; he cuddled up to Steve immediately, dropping his head to the man’s broad chest and wrapping both arms around his torso. It was the closest they’d been since the incident in Steve’s office; Bucky couldn’t think of any place he’d rather be.

It was only when the government agents started coming for E.T. that Bucky realized Steve had fallen asleep, his breathing evening out and maybe just the hint of a snore escaping him. (Which, okay, he wasn’t supposed to think _snoring_ was cute, and yet, there they were.) Bucky, being a reasonable person, focused on the fact that, as they’d gotten more comfortable, his head had shifted a little on Steve’s chest. It was closer to his ribcage now. His hand had migrated, too, moving from the man’s torso to his thigh. Sort of high up on his thigh. It just put things at an interesting angle, that was all.

Bucky was a thinker, he always had been, and he lost all interest in the movie as he started slowly but surely working his hand up Steve’s leg while subtly shifting his weight to ease his head closer to Steve’s lap. He’d been just about to get his face up close and personal with the material of Steve’s jeans when the owner of said jeans’ voice rumbled above him.

“Whatcha doing, Buck?”

He froze like a kid getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar, which was patently ridiculous because wanting to give Steve a hummer was _not something to feel guilty about,_ god damn it. “Um…” he thought for a minute, before turning his face to look up at Steve, who seemed sleepy and bemused all at once. “Waking you up?”

“I see that,” he nodded. “And what made you think that was how I wanted to be woken up?”

Another good question. “Because...most guys would?” He went for adorable and ended up somewhere in the neighborhood of plaintive. Damn it.

“Hey, I get it,” Steve said, and he was definitely smirking now. “Third date, you think you’re getting laid, want to get me in the mood…”

“Right!” Bucky agreed. Steve was smart. He got it. “That’s exactly it.”

“But you’re not getting laid.”

“But I’m not...wait _what_?” he yelped. That sent Steve into one of those big bursts of laughter that Bucky normally lived for. However, at that moment, it was just annoying “Why _not_?”

“Because the first time I sleep with you is not going to be after a twelve hour flight when I smell like an airport,” Steve replied smoothly, still laughing. “We’ve been over this before.”

“But _Steve_ ,” Bucky replied, and he knew he was whining. Steve had an uncanny ability to bring that out in him, which kind of made him wonder if the man was into it. “I don’t care what you smell like!”

“Charming, Bucky, but no,” he said, his lips quirking. “However, your initial idea isn’t a bad one, so long as we stop there.”

Victory! Bucky could do a blowjob. He was very good at them, he liked giving them, and while it wasn’t sex it would still make Steve feel good, so that was fine. He smiled a little, moving his hand back to its earlier mission of getting at Steve’s belt when Steve reached out and caught his wrist.

“I never said _you_ were giving _me_ one.”

The semi Bucky had been sporting for most of the evening was suddenly _very_ into the proceedings, while the owner of said dick managed an incredibly articulate, “um?!”

“There is the fact, however,” Steve continued, and he still had that damn smirk on his face. “That your friend Natasha also uses this couch. So I think we ought to take this show on the road.”

“Wait, you’re gonna blow me in the car?” The fuck, Barnes? Apparently, all the blood rushing south at once meant he was prone to saying some stupid shit. At least Steve started laughing again.

“I meant let’s go to your room, kiddo,” he teased, nudging Bucky up. “Go on, I’ll come in a second.”

“Hopefully I won’t!” Bucky practically ran into his room, hearing a groan from Steve at the truly terrible double entendre he’d left in his wake.

It was only once the door was shut that Bucky realized his dilemma: he had never been offered such a formal sucking off before. Shit. What was he supposed to do? Did one just take off one’s pants and sit down to wait? Seriously, was there some blowjob protocol he’d been missing out on? He wasn’t usually the one receiving such attention; mostly he was the one giving it. (The problem with a lot of tops was that they seemed to think they were the only people on the planet who appreciated a mouth on their prick, which was just the most untrue thing in the history of untrue things.)

He settled on unbuttoning his jeans and sitting at the edge of his bed, choosing to turn his bedside lamp off and letting the streetlight dimly illuminate the room. He wasn’t self-conscious, exactly, but he wished he’d done maybe ten extra crunches that week.

Steve was taking his time. Bucky wasn’t sure what exactly was holding him up until he heard the bathroom door open and shut. And the television turned off. And...the sink running? Was Steve _doing the dishes_?

Steve sucked. Not literally, though. Apparently.

His date finally knocked lightly before pushing the door open and leaning against the frame, crossing his arms over his chest. “So, two things.”

_Two. Things?!_

“Uh, yes?”

“Number one, we gotta talk about safety stuff,” Steve shrugged, “I got tested last month, haven’t been with anyone in a while, so I’m good. I can show you my results if you want to see them.”

Bucky shrugged, wondering what it said about him that the idea of talking about safe sex hadn’t crossed his mind. He usually just did whatever he was going to do, panicked, and got tested after the fact. However, he’d had the presence of mind to go to a clinic once he’d started seeing Gus, and he’d been once more since their break-up. “I uh...go pretty regularly,” he admitted. “I haven’t slept with anyone since the last test, though. I can show you, too. I don’t need to see yours, though, I believe you.”

Steve made a humming noise, smiling a little bit. “Good,” he said. “I do keep a dental dam in my wallet but…”

“Ew, _Steve_ ,” Bucky exclaimed, because while he knew safe sex was paramount, he found dental dams to be the least sexy thing in the universe, and he would rather have no blowjob at all than a blowjob with one of them in place. Well, maybe.

His reaction made Steve laugh again, raising an eyebrow before speaking. “I did say there were two things, right? Number two: why didn’t you take your pants off?”

Bucky hesitated. “Because...you didn’t tell me to?”

Steve smirked, moving further into the room and shutting the door behind him. “Huh. Guess I’ll have to do it for you then.”

Bucky was suddenly grateful for the size of his tiny bedroom as Steve crossed it in two long strides, leaning down to kiss him sweetly, crooking a finger under Bucky’s chin to tip his face up. He chased after the kiss, nearly standing up from the bed to meet Steve before a firm hand on his shoulder pushed him back down. Steve was looking at him with the same fond expression he’d had on the couch, but now there was something a bit more predatory in his eyes.

“Lie back,” he said quietly, the command implicit in his voice. Bucky scooted up so he could lean back against his pillow, propping himself up on his elbows. “Mmm, no,” Steve said easily. “Hands above your head, please.”

Bucky complied, though without a headboard he had to settle for gripping the top of the pillow instead. “Good,” Steve said, and something warm thrilled through Bucky at the praise. He didn’t hate it. “Keep them there. You move them before I say you can, I’m gonna stop.”

Bucky bit his lip, fingers flexing against the pillow. That was going to be hard; he was kind of tactile, and he liked getting his hands on, well, everything. But Steve seemed to like being in charge, which was really working for Bucky, although it wasn’t something he’d necessarily cared about all that much with other guys. (Or, he wondered briefly, was it that none of those other guys had ever been so good at telling him what to do?)

“Okay,” he said, his breath hitching in his throat when Steve settled on the bed next to him, putting a hand out to push Bucky’s shirt up before spanning his bare stomach with his long fingers. It sent a little tremor through him, one he was sure Steve noticed.

“Guess I better see what I’m working with,” Steve said, and it was _such_ a dorky way of saying it that Bucky laughed. That helped - his initial nerves had been affecting his libido, just a little, but relaxing caused his dick to twitch a bit in anticipation.

“What?” Steve teased, moving his hand to swat Bucky’s hip. “That’s funny?”

“Ow, yes,” he replied, continuing to laugh. “You’re hilarious.”

“Hmph,” Steve grunted, trying to hide his own amusement as he stood up. His response to Bucky’s teasing was to lean down, get his hands in the waistband of Bucky’s jeans, and pull them off along with his boxers in one relatively smooth motion.  (Granted, Bucky had deliberately not worn skinny jeans _just in case_ , so that helped.)

Steve tossed the clothing away before standing back and just sort of looking Bucky over. It was intimate and intimidating all at once. Bucky was generally okay with what he was walking around with; he knew he was on the bigger side of average and no guy he’d been with had complained. But still, with Steve looking him over, he felt exposed differently. He didn’t know if he liked it or not, and his voice came out tremulous. “You gonna come over here or what?”

Steve shook himself out of whatever reverie he’d been in while looking Bucky over, moving to sit down on the bed again before leaning in to kiss him gently. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured, his hand wrapping around Bucky’s shaft without warning and pumping him a few times.

(And if his hard-on had been flagging before, well, it was fucking back with a vengeance now.)

“Ungh,” Bucky managed, intelligently, his hips lifting a few inches from the bed as he gripped the pillow even harder. “Steve…”

Steve chuckled against his mouth, biting his lower lip lightly before releasing him. “Just relax, okay?”

Bucky nodded. He was going to try, at least. Steve kept one hand on him while shifting positions. He got himself settled at an angle where he could slot himself in between Bucky’s legs without being in danger of falling. (Bucky, meanwhile, was thanking every deity he could think of that he’d spent the extra money on a double bed when they moved in. A twin would have been a fucking tragedy.)

He let Jesus know how grateful he was the first time Steve ran his tongue around the head of Bucky’s cock, wondering if that much blasphemy was going to send him straight to hell.

As it turned out, Steve Rogers was fucking masterful at blowjobs. He was the Leonardo DaVinci of dick sucking, the Fellini of fellatio, as it were. (And where the fuck had _that_ analogy come from?) The man knew how to tease, turning his attention to the underside of Bucky’s shaft, working along the length with wet, tantalizing kisses. The attention left Bucky squirming, begging, and just when he thought he couldn’t take any more, Steve swallowed him down again, angling his head to take Bucky in deeper. His right hand was still wrapped around the base of Bucky’s cock, and where his mouth wasn’t his hand was until Bucky was so blissed out his hips bucked, driving his dick further into Steve’s mouth than the man was ready for. It made Steve gag and pull back, coughing. Bucky was horrified, his eyes going wide as he briefly considered breaking the rule about his hands.

“Oh my God, Steve, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“Bucky...Bucky…” Steve managed, his voice a little raspy as he lay a warm hand on Bucky’s belly. “It happens.” He smiled and glanced up, raising an eyebrow. “Besides, I said you couldn’t move your hands, not that you couldn’t move your hips. But uh, gonna amend the rules - don’t do that again. Face fucking doesn’t do it for me.”

Hearing Steve say ‘face fucking’ was nearly enough to send Bucky over the edge right then and there. However, he managed to pull himself together as Steve lowered his head again. The second bout was more successful but no less torturous for Bucky, who found himself fighting his urge to thrust up as well as his urge to bury his hands in Steve’s hair. The man was apparently trying to figure out what Bucky liked, so he tried different things, and when Bucky would keen or squirm or plead, he’d do it again. Eventually, he moved on to a different form of torture as Bucky discovered the fact that Steve Rogers possessed the valuable skill of being able to deepthroat a dick. Because he was perfect. He practically devoured Bucky, his warm breath tickling the hair at the base of his cock, sending spasms of want throughout Bucky’s entire body. Steve upped the ante as he moved his free hand between Bucky’s legs to get a feel for how he might like having his balls handled. (The answer, incidentally, was literally every way Steve fucking wanted.)

“Steeeeve..” Bucky whined, his toes curling and uncurling as he tried to control his breathing with absolutely no success. “You gotta move or something, please?”

The man took him at his word, beginning to set a steady rhythm, the sounds of his mouth on Bucky’s cock wet and obscene in the otherwise silent apartment. It wasn’t long before Bucky felt a familiar tug in his stomach. He let out a whimper, moving his leg to try and nudge Steve away before he got a mouthful. “Gonna…”

Steve, however, would not be nudged, taking Bucky’s warning as an invitation to swallow him down and fucking _hum_ around him until Bucky came with a shout, his hips jerking involuntarily again though this time Steve pulled back enough to catch Bucky’s release without choking himself on it.

Bucky, meanwhile, was floating somewhere about three feet above his body as the aftershocks of his orgasm continued to spasm through him. He found himself shivering as he loosened the white-knuckle grip he had on the pillow above his head - still not daring to move his arms. “Uuuuuh…” he managed, his brain incapable of forming any coherent thought.

“Indeed,” Steve said. Bucky guessed he’d swallowed somewhere in there, which was a very gallant, gentlemanly thing to do. “You’re cute when you come.” Noticing Bucky’s shivering, Steve reached down to the foot of the bed for his extra blanket, wrapping him up in it as he moved to lie next to him, hands under the material, so he was still touching Bucky’s bare skin (for which Bucky was eternally grateful). His hand settled on Bucky’s stomach again, apparently a favorite spot, and he turned his head to press a line of kisses along Bucky’s jaw. “I can’t believe you still haven’t moved your hands,” he teased.

Bucky was pretty sure his ability to speak had returned, so he gave it a shot. “You told me not to,” he murmured. “Said you’d stop.”

“I did say that, didn’t I?” Steve said. “Let me see those poor hands.” Bucky complied, surprised to find how stiff his arms were as he brought them down. The hummer hadn’t exactly taken ages (Steve had him on a hair trigger, embarrassingly enough), but he’d been tense for a lot of it, which had likely exacerbated the stiffness. Steve smiled, taking one of Bucky’s hands in both of his to massage. “You liked that?”

“Which part?” Bucky asked though he’d be hard-pressed to think of a part he hadn’t.

“Mmm...any of it, all of it?” Steve replied, nudging Bucky into a different position so he could properly wrap him up, cuddling him close and starting the hand massage again.

“Um...all of it,” Bucky said, watching as Steve’s deft fingers manipulated his own. “I dunno. I don’t get sucked off a lot but that was definitely my best ever.”

Steve looked scandalized. “Why don’t you get sucked off a lot? You should have people lined up for the privilege of sucking your dick, sweetheart.”

That made Bucky laugh, nuzzling into Steve’s neck and sighing. “Guess most tops don’t like giving ‘em?” A thought came to him then, and he glanced up with some worry playing across his features. “I mean, you do...top, right? We didn’t talk about it, but…”

“Mostly.” Steve let go of Bucky’s left hand and picked up his right. “Not exclusively. But I like setting the rules in either scenario.”

Bucky grinned, giving Steve a little bite, just above his collar. “I like following rules, I guess. Sometimes.”

“You know, sometimes is my favorite part,” Steve teased. He was quiet for a moment after that, his expression shifting. “You know you get an opinion, right? Just because I ask for it doesn’t mean you have to do it.”

“...yes?” Bucky replied because that seemed like a strange question. Of course he had a choice.

“I just mean...” Steve sighed, shaking his head. “Everyone’s got things they like, and things they don’t mind, but they’ll do because the person they’re with likes those things, and then there are the things they tolerate and the things they…”

“Steve!” Bucky laughed, cutting him off. “Holy shit. I’ll tell you if I don’t like something. Just...we don’t have to talk about it all tonight, you know? Let’s just try some stuff and be honest with each other. Deal?”

Steve looked surprised at Bucky’s pushback, though his face ultimately relaxed into a smile and he nodded. “Deal.”  

Bucky shifted his weight, feeling the unmistakable press of an erection against his thigh as he glanced down at the bulge Steve was sporting. “Hey,” he murmured. “Don’t you need to uh…?”

“Yes,” Steve smiled, seemingly not too bothered. “And I will. You don’t need to to take care of it.”

“Why not?” He turned his head up again. “I’m really good at taking care of it.”

“I have no doubt of that.” Steve laughed, shifting Bucky back into position so he could tuck him against his chest. “And you will. In...so many filthy ways. But tonight, I’m taking care of you.”

Bucky nodded, even if he didn’t fully understand. Steve got quiet for a while, his left hand tracing patterns on Bucky’s shoulder while Bucky focused his attention on admiring the contours of Steve’s chest under his button-down. Under other circumstances, it might have felt weird to be half-naked with a guy who was fully-clothed, but with Steve, he felt comfortable.

So comfortable, in fact, that he didn’t realize he’d drifted off until he felt Steve shifting under him, attempting to extricate himself from Bucky’s embrace without waking him up. “Whereyagoin?” Bucky mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

“Home,” Steve said quietly, causing Bucky to whine in protest. “Can’t be helped, I have to be in the office early.”

“On a  _Sunday_?” he complained.

“I don’t get weekends,” Steve teased. “Besides, you’re half-asleep. I heard Natasha come in a few minutes ago - she can lock up after me.”

Bucky sighed, cracking an eye open and looking up with a scowl. “Sleepover soon?”

“I promise.”

“Okay.” He wasn’t thrilled, but it was fine.

Steve leaned down, kissing his forehead and sighing. “Goodnight, Bucky.”

It was a nice idea, really, Steve thinking that Bucky was going to fall into a sweet, blowjob induced coma the minute the bedroom door shut behind him. The reality, of course, was that two seconds after Steve left the apartment he’d yanked on pajama pants and careened into the living room to tell Natasha _everything_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! There will be an actual plot again eventually, but for now, there shall be sweetness and dates. 
> 
> Shameless Tumblr plug: I'm at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com/) over there.


	14. Summer in the City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When it's summer in the city, and you’re long gone from the city, I start to miss you, baby, sometimes.

**June (1)**

“James, come in my office for a second,” Maria called out, walking briskly past his desk one Tuesday morning in June. Never one to ignore a direct order, Bucky followed her, only to find Brock Rumlow already in there waiting.

Apparently, Maria wanted them to team up to develop a communications plan that would be used to promote a new initiative StarkTech was rolling out in the fall. Maria seemed to think that Bucky could _learn things_ from _Rumlow_. It felt like she didn’t know him at all.

(Granted, it was a plum assignment, and she’d started rumbling about training him for an eventual promotion, but ugh. Rumlow.)

“I just hate him,” he complained later that evening, frowning at the screen where he was currently video chatting with Steve, who was half a world away. Bucky hadn’t seen him in person since the Great Blow Job of Two Saturdays Ago.

“You’ll do great, Buck,” he said. “Just keep your head down, see what you can learn, tell the guy to back off if he starts driving you crazy.”

“Easy for you to say, everyone has to listen to you,” he said, rolling his eyes at the fact Steve was looking at some papers on the table next to him rather than Bucky. “You’re not even paying attention to me.”

Steve had the grace to look guilty as he turned his attention back to the phone. “I know, I’m sorry. I know I said we’d talk this morning, but I gotta get through this report before I go to my meeting.”

“Well, it’s nighttime here, and I miss you,” Bucky groused, frowning at the phone.

“Buck…”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” he sighed, because he didn’t like making Steve feel guilty. At the same time, he was never home, and Bucky was starting to resent his phone for being the only point of contact he had with his, well, whatever Steve was after three dates and countless texts.

“Go jerk off. Think about me when you come,” Steve said with a smirk. “Then go to sleep.”

“Steeeeeeve!” he groaned.

“Are you gonna do it or not?”

“...yes.”

* * *

**June (2)**

“America!”

“James!”

“You graduated!”

“I did!”

“Congratulations! They hired you?”

“They did!”

“What does junior analyst mean, exactly?”

“Um. I will let you know when I figure it out.”

“Cool.”

* * *

**June (3)**

“Bucky, did you order the world’s biggest package?” Natasha’s voice floated through his bedroom door.

“I carry it around with me every day, Tasha,” he shot back.

“Jesus Christ. Would you just get out here?”

Bucky smirked, hopping up from where he’d been reading and heading out to the living room to join Natasha and, yes, their gigantic package.

“Huh,” he said. “I guess we should open it.”

It took them a while to find the scissors (“why are they in the vegetable drawer, Bucky?!” “I don’t know, I got distracted!”), but once they did, they found a brand new window air-conditioning unit inside, along with a note. This one wasn’t hand-written, but that didn’t make it any less valuable.

> _Please stop complaining about how hot your apartment is._
> 
> _-Steve_

“I love your boyfriend, Bucky.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Yet.

* * *

**June (4)**

“Barnes, are you listening to me?”

Bucky looked up from where he might or might not have been playing with his phone, hoping for a text from Steve. He was supposed to be working with Brock on their report, but the guy was so obnoxious that he’d gotten distracted. Putting the phone down on the table, he grabbed his notebook. “Uh, sorry, what?”

“Jesus,” Rumlow replied, shaking his head. “I asked if you’d read over the analysis from the product testers yet to get the numbers for the release.”

“I did do that,” Bucky said, because he actually did do his job in between texts from Steve. “But I left my notes on my desk. Hang on.”

He hurried out of Rumlow’s office, traversing the suite to his desk, where he grabbed his notes from the messy pile that he really needed to get around to cleaning one day, before heading back. Rumlow was holding his phone when he got there.

“Uh…”

“Who’s Steve?” Rumlow asked with a smirk.

Shit. Extra shit. He had to play it off. Luckily, he had Steve saved in his phone with two heart emojis for a last name, and there were millions of guys named Steve in the world. Still, he could have kicked himself for leaving his phone unlocked on the table. Then again, Rumlow really shouldn’t have been looking at his fucking phone.

“Uh…” Eloquent, Barnes, really. “Gimme my phone, please?”

“Didn’t know you were into guys,” Rumlow replied, keeping the phone and twisting his mouth up into a nasty little smirk. Bucky was suddenly even more uncomfortable. It wasn’t like he thought Rumlow was going to turn into some gay-bashing asshole, but the way he said it reminded Bucky of the times in high school he’d been cornered by various insecure fucknuggets about being queer. (And seriously, how oblivious was Brock Rumlow? Bucky had a fucking rainbow flag in his pod.)

“Does it matter?” he snapped, actively annoyed as he held out his hand for the phone.

“Whoa, Barnes,” Rumlow said, that shit-eating smirk still on his face when he handed the device over. “Calm down. I don’t give a shit. Just think maybe you ought to be a little more careful about what kind of shit you’re texting in the office.

Bucky went red, glancing down to see the last couple of texts visible on the screen. He and Steve had been getting more explicit the longer they’d gone without seeing one another, but they hadn’t been doing anything _that_ bad so far that day.

 

( _Steve: What’s the point of Lucky Charms? Just eat Cheerios. Actually, don’t eat cereal at all, it doesn’t fill you up, and if you’re training for the half, you need to eat more protein._

_Bucky: WHY are you such a nerd? I just like the marshmallows!_

_Steve: I am more and more convinced you’re 99.9% sugar._

_Bucky: Because I am so sweet?_

_Steve: Because you eat nothing but candy._

_Bucky: It’s because I’m sweet.)_

 

Not bad. That was a relief. (Though if Rumlow had scrolled up, he could have seen Steve’s instructions about when and where Bucky could jerk himself off the night before. That was becoming a regular occurrence. It was great.) Still, he hated that any part of what he and Steve had was exposed to someone as awful as Rumlow. It felt invasive and gross, and he hated that fucking guy so much. But he wasn’t going to be a baby about it and whine to Maria. He could handle his shit and make sure to always lock his phone when Brock’s particular brand of assholery was around.

* * *

**June (5)**

_Steve: So I have kind of a dumb request._

_Bucky: Shoot._

_Steve: My birthday’s on the 4th of July._

_Bucky: NO WAY._

_Steve: Not the point. Can I cook you dinner and do you want to have that sleepover I promised you? Doesn’t have to be on the 4th since we have work the next day._

_Bucky: YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS but how is that a present for you??? do i get to come to your place?!?! Ill take PTO on the wednesday if you do_

_Steve: Believe me, it’s a present. I’ll take the day after, too._

* * *

**July (1)**

“You know, you don’t actually have to get him anything,” Natasha pointed out as Bucky dragged her into the fifth store of the morning to try and find something for Steve’s birthday. “He’s probably going to like...do something sappy and say you’re his present and he just wants to unwrap you.”

“Of course he’s going to do that! That’s like...the most realistic scenario ever, Nat, because he’s the biggest dork in the world. Which is why I need to get him an actual gift,” Bucky grumbled.

“Well, what does he like?” she replied. “You’ve been on all those dates, and you talk to him incessantly.”

“I don’t know!” Bucky exclaimed. But the thing was, when he thought about it, he actually knew a lot about what Steve liked. Because he liked Steve, and he paid attention to what the man said when they were together. “I mean, he likes art a lot. He’s always talking about the charity stuff he does with the museums, and I think he paints and sketches and everything, even outside of work. Um, and he likes baseball, he’s a big idiot about that. He loves old movies, and he’s really into board games and vinyl records. Oh! And he wants to get a dog, but he doesn’t think he’d have time to take care of it, so I guess he likes dogs, too.”

He cut himself off, glancing over at Natasha who had a grin on her face that Bucky could only describe as shit-eating. “Yasha.” She said, her smile growing. “Holy shit. You looooooove him, you want to adopt a dog with him.”

“I do not!” he protested. “We’ve only been dating for like a month and a half.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been pining for him for a year, goofy,” she shrugged.

“It hasn’t been a year,” Bucky replied immediately. Natasha raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to mentally calculate it. Holy shit. It had been a year. He’d interviewed for his job in June of the prior summer, and his one-year anniversary at StarkTech was coming up on August first. Granted, it had taken the better part of that year for him to figure out the Steve situation, but the time had gone amazingly quickly. “Jesus,” he muttered. “It _has_ been a year. What the fuck happened?”

Natasha smiled, wandering over to look at some notebooks. “Time passes. Sunrise, sunset. One season following another, happiness, tears, blah blah blah. You wanna go into the city and check out an art supply store, see if we can get something he’d really like?”

“Yup,” Bucky agreed, following her out of the store.

* * *

**July (4)**

_Bucky: So you’re sure the doorman has my name?_

_Steve: Do you think I’m going to invite you over and not let you up?_

_Bucky:_ _¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_

_Steve: …_

_Bucky: I’ll be there at 7._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter series of vignettes to get us where we're going. Up next: Steve's birthday, then another few chapters of relationship building.
> 
> If you don't know the song that inspired the chapter, you should: [Regina Spektor - Summer in the City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvXs9Qy6mMo). Save for the part where it's about a woman, it's definitely capturing a lot of Bucky's ~feelz~
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com).


	15. Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve turns thirty-seven. Bucky is appalled by the lack of cake.

Bucky had been on the track team in high school. He’d been good at it, especially in the long-distance events, and as a result, he’d gotten a fair amount of praise and attention from both his coaches and other kids at school. It had gotten to the point where, before meets, he would be so keyed up with anticipation and nerves that he felt his whole body vibrating with it.

He’d forgotten what that felt like until he entered Steve’s pre-war building on the Upper East Side. Even the lobby was intimidating, all marble and wood. Bucky felt small and out of place in his t-shirt and jeans, holey Chucks on his feet and backpack over his shoulder. He didn’t belong there, and he was pretty sure that the doorman was going to come over and kick him right out.

“Can I help you, sir?” came a voice to his left. He looked over to find said doorman regarding him with the kind of friendly firmness which meant he was ready to give Bucky directions to the nearest subway. The guy was intimidating, with bright red hair and a mustache that wouldn’t be out of place in any Brooklyn hipster bar.

“I’m...Steve Rogers is expecting me?” he offered, wishing he hadn’t stammered. “He said I was on his list?”

The doorman relaxed at the mention of Steve’s name, glancing down at the tablet on his desk. “You must be...James Barnes?”

“Yes,” Bucky nodded, fumbling in his pocket for his wallet, pulling out his battered state ID, and sliding it across the desk towards him, noticing his name tag read Tim.

Tim checked the ID against his records, tapping the tablet a couple of times before picking up his phone and dialing three numbers. “Mr. Barnes is here,” he said, glancing at Bucky. “I’ll send him right up.” Hanging up the phone, he nodded at Bucky. “You can take any elevator - press the button that says PH and he’ll unlock it from up top.”

Bucky must have looked confused, he realized, as Tim started laughing. It wasn’t a mean sort of laughter, but it indicated Bucky had missed something. “Elevator opens right into the apartment, kid,” he explained. “No access unless you have a key or someone upstairs flips the switch.

Oh. Of course the elevator opened right up into Steve’s penthouse apartment; Bucky didn’t even have a working elevator and Steve had private access. That was going to help his nerves a lot. “Thanks,” he mumbled, crossing the lobby to the elevator bank, stepping inside when a car arrived. He hit ‘PH’ as instructed, his heart thumping in his chest as the doors slid shut smoothly. Even the elevator was swanky, with ornate wood paneling and a tiled floor.

(This was ridiculous. It was _Steve._ He didn’t have to be nervous around Steve, god damn it. And yet, there he was.)

The doors opened onto a very nicely appointed entry hall, and Bucky was relieved to see Steve standing there waiting, looking handsome (but not obscenely rich) in a long-sleeved grey shirt and jeans, his feet bare. Bucky hadn’t seen him in person for nearly two weeks, and it struck him how much Steve still managed to catch him off-guard with his mere presence.

“Hi,” Steve greeted, reaching a hand out to pull him in for a tight hug, kissing his temple and giving Bucky ample opportunity to breathe him in. And calm down.

“Hi,” Bucky replied, his arms going around Steve’s waist to squeeze him back tightly, his nerves starting to dissipate. It was Steve. He didn’t have to impress him - Steve liked him regardless of the fact that he didn’t know how penthouse elevators worked. “Happy birthday.”

Steve looked pleased as he pulled back, leaning down to give him a little kiss and brush some hair out of his eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “Thanks for coming over. You want the grand tour?”

“Sure,” he nodded, smiling a little as Steve reached for his hand.

The penthouse was beautiful, though not in the way Bucky had expected. He’d anticipated one of the flashy monstrosities that had shot up around the city in the past decade, all chrome and steel with walls of windows and sleek, modern lines. They were buildings that looked like StarkTech - like the phones and tablets Steve and his team designed. Steve’s home, by contrast, was warm and intimate, with great care having been taken to preserve the details of the old building, even as it had been updated with modern amenities.

The living room was full of plush couches and a beautiful fireplace, alongside French doors that led to a private terrace overlooking Central Park. Steve had good taste. Bucky wasn’t really surprised by that, and he found himself drawn to the artwork on the walls, especially a piece over the fireplace.

“That’s really nice,” he commented, stepping closer. “I like the um...I don’t know. I can’t say it right, but it makes me feel kind of warm?”

Steve smiled, squeezing Bucky’s fingers lightly. “That one...I did it in college. It was for my senior showcase.”

“You did that?” he said, sounding surprised as he turned his head to look at Steve, who laughed and blushed a bit.

“Yeah, actually,” he teased. “Don’t sound so shocked. I used to do a lot of this stuff. I thought I’d try my hand at being a starving artist, and then I met Tony and life sort of played out differently.”

“Oh,” Bucky nodded. “You still draw and stuff, though, right?” His thoughts briefly flashed to his backpack, and the present he’d stuck inside.

“Not as much as I’d like,” Steve said. “Come on.”

Bucky had noticed Steve often shut down conversations that he didn’t want to have. He wasn’t going to push the issue, but sometimes it bothered him. It felt like maybe Steve wasn’t letting him in completely. Still, wasn’t worth spoiling the evening with a squabble. Instead, he followed Steve to the kitchen, where he could smell something delicious in the oven (“dinner,” Steve explained, which Bucky thought was a _little_ obvious) and then into the formal dining room, which held more interesting art.

“Did you do that one?” he asked.

“No, it's a Matisse,” Steve replied, not unkindly, though Bucky felt stupid about it. “Pepper gave me that one.”

Because Pepper Potts was just someone Steve could talk about casually since she was his friend, and Tony Stark was his friend, and Bucky was starting to get a little overwhelmed again. Being in Steve’s space was different than being in Bucky’s little apartment, or a pizza place, or even a fancy restaurant.

“Oh,” he replied, knowing his voice sounded small.

If Steve picked up on his discomfort, he didn’t say anything, instead tugging Bucky down a small hallway and into a room that felt distinctly more casual - a den with a large television and some very worn, comfortable leather couches. This room, more than any other so far, felt like Bucky’s Steve instead of the famous Steve with important friends.

“This is where I spend an embarrassing amount of time when I’m home,” he admitted. The room did feel lived in, with dark wood built-in bookshelves lining the walls, crammed full of a million odds and ends. Bucky moved over to examine a framed photograph on one of the shelves. The picture was of a frail-looking blonde woman in a floral printed dress, standing next to a skinny kid in a cap and gown.

“Is that...you?” he asked, glancing from the picture to Steve, then back again.

Steve moved closer, dropping a hand to the small of Bucky’s back and huffing a laugh. “High school graduation,” he said. “I’d just had a growth spurt - stretched me out, I was so skinny.”

“Is that your ma?” he asked.

“Mmmhmm,” Steve replied, his hand tensing on Bucky’s back imperceptibly. “Sarah.”

“She was really pretty,” he said quietly, biting his lip as he reached out to touch the frame lightly. “She looks so proud of you.”

“She was,” Steve murmured, before pulling his hand back and clearing his throat. “We can uh...if you want to, I can show you upstairs. You can put your stuff down.”

Bucky hesitated, pulling back from the picture and nodding as he glanced at Steve, who was resolutely not meeting his eyes. This time it wasn’t about Steve dropping the subject- Bucky had learned enough to know that Sarah Rogers was a topic that Steve _couldn’t_ discuss, not really. So he just nodded, reaching for Steve’s hand and smiling. “Sure. I also wanna point out that you have an _upstairs_. That’s ridiculous. Who has stairs in New York City?”

(If Bucky was good at one thing, it was shifting the mood and making Steve smile.)

The second floor, as it turned out, was mostly bedrooms that Steve didn’t bother showing Bucky, as well as Steve’s office, which was very similar to his office at work. There was also a _gym_ , which was possibly the most ridiculous thing Bucky had ever seen in his life. He teased Steve about his private trainer immediately after finding out the man had one. Steve, at least, had a sense of humor about it.

The master bedroom was located, by Bucky’s estimation, above where the formal living room was downstairs. It came equipped with a master bath and walk-in closet, which Steve explained had been built out of a converted sixth bedroom. (Like one did, of course, when one converted one’s giant-ass penthouse.) The room was nice, though it didn’t feel as homey as the den. It was more like a hotel - like maybe Steve just came up here to sleep and dress and nothing in between.

“Why don’t you leave your stuff here and we can go down and eat?” Steve offered, gesturing to the bench at the foot of the massive California king bed that dominated a good portion of the room.

Bucky nodded, moving to put his bag down before unzipping it and reaching inside to pull out Steve’s wrapped present and a card. “Um...I got you this…” he offered, holding it out to him and feeling more and more like it was a stupid idea.

Steve, however, lit up as though Bucky had just offered him the moon, taking the gift and leaning down to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, baby. Should I open it now?”

Bucky shrugged, abashed but pleased with the reaction. “I dunno. If you want. It’s not like...a big deal.”

“I wasn’t expecting anything,” Steve replied before opening up the card. Bucky had gone for the stupid over the heartfelt, with a dog on the front and a dumb pun inside. Steve, to his credit, actually laughed. Bucky hadn’t written a long message because he’d felt ridiculous trying to express how he felt in a card from Duane Reade, so he’d just signed his name.

Steve placed the card on his bedside table, which made Bucky grin in spite of himself. He then went to work on the gift, carefully unwrapping it to reveal the sketchbook that the woman in the art store had insisted was what real professionals used. It had cost more than Bucky thought any human should spend on paper, so he’d taken her word for it.

Hands smoothing across the cover, Steve looked both surprised and (thank God) pleased. “Bucky…” he said quietly. “Sweetheart, thank you.”

“It’s...I mean, I know you said you don’t draw as much, downstairs, but you’re always talking about art and I know you went to school for it so I just figured you might have some pencils or something somewhere and…”

Steve mercifully cut off his ramble with a firm kiss, wrapping his free arm around Bucky’s torso and pulling back with a smile. “I love it, Buck. Thank you.”

Bucky felt gooey right down to his toes (gross), and he squirmed, smiling and looking down. “Welcome.”

“Maybe I could try sketching you some time,” Steve offered, carefully putting the sketchbook down on his nightstand as well. “If you wanted. I’d probably be a little rusty.”

“Really?” Bucky said, looking up at him. “Why me?”

Steve laughed at that, raising an eyebrow. “Because I like you, and I think you’re incredibly handsome, and I’d like to try committing that to the page?”

“Oh,” Bucky nodded. “ _Incredibly_ handsome, not just like...regular handsome?”

“See, you think it’s cute when you go fishing for compliments, Barnes…”

“It’s not cute, it’s strategic. How else will I build up my fragile self-worth?” he asked, looking up at Steve plaintively. Steve, in an apparent superhuman show of will, managed not to laugh at him.

“Mmm,” he agreed with a smirk. “You’re real fragile, Buck. You wanna get your fragile self downstairs so we can eat some food?”

“Orrrrr...we could stay up here…?” Bucky wheedled, stepping a bit closer and hooking his index fingers into the belt loops of Steve’s jeans, pulling their hips dangerously close and applying a bit of friction as he leaned up for a light kiss.

“Patience, sweet boy,” Steve rumbled, his voice and his choice of phrasing sending a shiver down Bucky’s spine, and causing his dick to take a bit of interest in the proceedings. (Which, god damn it, needed to stop happening at inopportune moments.) “Food first - builds up your stamina.”

Bucky couldn’t fault the logic in that.

* * *

Dinner was baked ziti, which Bucky found adorable because it was such an Italian grandma thing to make. Steve had even made a salad to go with it, which was probably what you did when you were a Real Adult. Most of Bucky’s vegetables came in the form of the frozen, bagged variety, and even then he was much more likely to skip the whole “balanced meal” thing in favor of a burger.

“You know,” Bucky said as Steve offered him a top up on his glass of wine. “You’re gonna have to make my birthday fucking...spectacular next year.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, sitting back down. “Oh yeah?” (And, okay, Bucky’s heart jumped a little at the fact Steve was acknowledging the possibility that they would be together the next time his birthday rolled around.)

“Yeah, because you ruined my birthday this year, so you owe me.” Bucky was mostly teasing, but Steve’s face fell, and he frowned.

“I’m still so sorry about that,” he said. “I felt awful. I was so mad at myself.”

Bucky shrugged, treading delicately, as he had some unresolved issues from that particular evening. Issues he’d never bothered to bring up before because things had been going well, and he’d been afraid of making Steve angry. He was beginning to realize, however, that Steve wasn’t going to drop him over something as trivial as a question. “Why’d you do it, then?” he asked. “Play with me like that?”

Steve hesitated before reaching for his wine glass, taking a sip and ruminating on his answer. “It’s complicated,” he said eventually. “I’d told myself I wasn’t going to see you again after we got caught in the rain. And I guess I knew there was the possibility you’d be at Natasha’s show, but I wasn’t going there for you - I really was going to see her dance. But then…” He smiled a little bit, pushing a hand through his hair and looking almost wistful. “You were there, and you seemed so tense when she was performing that one dance. I wanted to make you feel better. So I held your hand and felt guilty about it afterward. But then she invited me out with you guys, and you said I could come, so I started thinking...I can do this, I can hang out with him, and it doesn’t have to be about wanting him.”

Bucky snorted, rolling his eyes a little. “Yeah, okay.”

Clearing his throat pointedly, Steve continued. “Anyway, at the bar you were...different than I’d seen you before - funny and charming. Not that you’re not always funny and charming! But with your friends it was effortless. You make everything better, you light people up. I watched you walk outside, and I was going to come and tell you everything. How I felt, how terrified I was about those feelings. So I went outside and saw you in that alley and...I don’t know, Bucky, I can’t describe it, exactly, and I’m not good at talking about this stuff.”

“That’s what I thought,” Bucky agreed. “I thought, when you kissed me, that it was...that you were saying yes, to everything.”

“I was saying yes,” he sighed. “And then I panicked about how intense it got, how much I wanted you. It was...overwhelming. You’re overwhelming.” He hesitated at the look on Bucky’s face. “Not in a bad way, sweetheart. But also not in a way I’d experienced before, even with Peggy. So I fucked up, and I walked away.”

“And ruined my birthday.”

“And ruined your birthday,” he nodded. “So when you came into my office a month later spitting shit at me, my first inclination was to be pissed. And then...I don’t know. You broke me, jerk.”

Bucky laughed, reaching for his wine and raising an eyebrow. “That sounds so bad! It makes it seem like I wore you down or something.”

“You did wear me down,” Steve countered with a smile. “You knocked down every objection I had by being yourself, not just some random cute guy I felt bad about wanting to take home with me.”

“You wanted to take me home with you?”

“Well…” Steve smirked. “I wanted to hit the elevator stop button and make you late for your interview the first time I saw you, but that’s just my reaction to all the pretty brunettes I’m exposed to on a daily basis.”

“Asshole.”

“Indeed. You finished with your food?” Bucky nodded because he’d just been picking at what was left on his plate. “Good. Why don’t you go upstairs and I’ll clean up down here?”

“I can help clean up,” he offered.

“It’s cute that you think you have a choice,” Steve replied. “Go upstairs. I’ll clean up down here. And while we’re on the subject of what I want you to do, go ahead and take your clothes off when you get there.”

Bucky didn’t have to be told twice, bouncing up from the table and towards the stairs where he fairly flew to Steve’s bedroom. It was only once he was there that he began second-guessing Steve’s instructions, wondering if he wanted him naked or just in his underwear, under the covers or on top of them? There were a lot of variables, and he ultimately decided that if Steve hadn’t specifically said _not_ to do something, then he could do it. So he played with the lights in the room until he found a combination that left things fairly dim, before undressing completely and stretching out on the bed to wait. It wasn’t hard to pick up on the fact that Steve most definitely had an authority kink (he was _not_ subtle). Apparently he also had a ‘making Bucky wait’ kink, as it took him nearly twenty fucking minutes to come upstairs, during which time Bucky’s hand had wandered down to idly play with himself, partially out of boredom and partly because, well, it felt good, and he wasn’t sure if Steve would like it.

He was caught in the act when Steve opened the door, sending a shaft of light from the hallway almost directly onto Bucky, who froze mid-stroke. Steve, to his credit, just looked bemused as he stepped into the room. “Huh,” he said. “That’s interesting. Guess I’ll have to make a rule about that next time.”

Bucky shrugged, his hand starting to move again as he watched Steve close the door and cross the room, standing next to the bed and watching Bucky impassively. “...should I stop, then?” he asked, looking up with wide eyes, a little breathless.

Steve smiled, one of those predatory smiles he saved for when he really wanted to fuck with him. They didn’t happen often, but they always sent a little flutter of fear-slash-excitement through Bucky’s body.

“Mmm, rather you didn’t,” he shrugged. “Keep going until I tell you to stop. If you’re going to come before I do, though, tell me.”

Bucky wasn’t a stranger to edging. He’d done it to himself to see how much he could prolong an orgasm, and he’d played games a couple of times with guys he’d gone out with who were into it. But this felt different.

Steve crossed the room to an armchair, sitting down with a practiced ease and inclining his head. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Bucky began working himself over with a groan; it didn’t hurt that he already knew what he liked, and there was the added turn-on of having Steve’s dark eyes watching him from the corner. It wasn’t long before his toes were curling up a bit, his hips arching off the mattress as he twisted his wrist in a way that always got him there. He was just about to open his mouth to warn Steve when his voice cut through him like a knife. 

“Stop.”

Bucky’s hand let go as if his dick were on fire, mewling plaintively and looking at Steve despairingly. Steve certainly looked amused, giving Bucky about half a minute to recover before he spoke.

“Again.”

Steve Rogers wasn’t a sadist, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he proved himself capable of torturing Bucky over the course of five more aborted orgasms. He used the time in between, when Bucky was desperate and complaining, to get rid of his clothing. When he was down to just his expensive looking boxers, he glanced at Bucky, who was on the verge of breaking the rules and just fucking _coming_ because he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Stop. You’re done.”

Bucky yelped, releasing himself and flopping bonelessly to the mattress, his breathing heavy. “What’s done mean?” he gasped, trying not to pout and knowing he was failing.

“It means you’re not touching yourself again tonight,” Steve said quietly. He walked to the bed, leaning down and meeting Bucky’s bitten lips with a hard, possessive kiss. “I’ll take care of you, sweet boy, but first I need you to take care of me.”

Bucky nodded, eyes wide as Steve pushed his boxers down and off, before stretching out on the bed next to him. It was his first look at Steve in the altogether, and what he found was very agreeable. He worked out, that much was evident even when he was clothed, but naked he was solid and cut, despite being closer to forty than thirty. (Must have been that personal trainer.) And, well, he’d had his suspicions about the size of the package Steve was walking around with - he was pleased to see those suspicions were confirmed.

Bucky was unable to keep his eyes off said package when Steve spoke up, a hint of amusement in his voice. “I seem to recall someone telling me he was really good at blowjobs.”

Well, Bucky wasn’t about to make a liar out of himself. And he had to admit, two minutes later when he had Steve’s dick about as far down his throat as it was going to go without killing him, Steve seemed happy with his efforts. Bucky had always liked giving head, honestly, because he’d gotten off on making the person he was blowing fall apart.

It was easy to notice things from that position - the way Steve’s breath hitched when Bucky pressed his tongue to a particular spot on the underside of his shaft, or how pulling back too much had Steve pushing his hand into Bucky’s hair to guide him back down. Which, of course, resulted in Bucky moaning, and Steve jerking his hips a little in response. Bucky didn’t flinch, though, taking the opportunity to start moving his head, letting Steve set the pace.

“Good boy, you’re so good, Bucky, that’s perfect sweetheart, so good…” Steve was a talker, or rather, he was a babbler. Bucky found that exceedingly charming. He didn’t seem to have much control over what he said, it was just a stream of nice things with some very specific praise over certain actions Bucky took. So he kept doing those things until Steve pulled him back.

“God, you’re sweet,” Steve smiled, shaking his head and bringing Bucky towards him for a kiss. When he pulled back, he drew his hand down Bucky’s cheek and held his chin lightly before running his thumb roughly over Bucky’s mouth. “Pretty boy, look at those lips.”

Bucky blushed, ducking his head. “Don’t hide, gorgeous,” Steve murmured, pulling him in again. He was all hands, and he had them everywhere at once as he eased Bucky down to the mattress, maneuvering him onto his stomach. Bucky made a noise of protest when Steve pulled away, which earned him a chuckle as Steve leaned down to press a kiss to his shoulder blade.

“I’m just going to get lube, Buck. Unless you want me doing this without it?”

“...maybe,” Bucky mumbled into the pillow. That got him a swat on the ass, which made him grin. Steve make short work of digging in his nightstand for a bottle of what they needed.

“Turn on your side, sweetheart,” he coaxed as he came back, maneuvering Bucky a bit. “Let me kiss you?”

Bucky didn’t need to be asked twice, moving where Steve wanted him and sighing against the other man’s mouth. He hardly noticed the pop of the bottle opening, and when Steve’s index finger found its way between his cheeks he only moaned into the kiss, pressing back against his finger.

“Eager,” Steve teased, kissing Bucky again as he pressed in. Bucky was no stranger to being prepped, but Steve found a way of making it seem not quite so clinical, kissing him and talking to him sweetly the whole time.

“Ready for another one?” he asked after what seemed like an eternity. Bucky nodded, only whining a little when Steve changed his position to accommodate his middle finger. Steve’s patience was endless - he paused, giving Bucky time to adjust before easing him open, using both fingers to stretch him out. “My good boy,” he murmured against Bucky’s mouth, the praise influencing Bucky’s decision both to kiss Steve harder and press back on his fingers all at once.

Steve was deliberate, and after a good, long while with two fingers, he pulled back and looked at Bucky closely. “You want to go for three?”

Bucky considered. Steve wasn’t small, and he hadn’t been with anyone since his last time with Gus. That had been May, and while he might have enjoyed being ordered around, he certainly wasn’t a masochist. “Three, please...thank you.”

Smiling, Steve kissed him again. “Thank you for being honest,” he replied, before setting to work. Bucky hissed in discomfort when Steve worked a third finger into him, causing Steve to pull back. “It’s okay,” he said, at Bucky’s distressed protest. “I know. I’m just getting more lube.” Oh. Well, that certainly seemed like a good idea. Bucky was fine with that, especially a few seconds later when Steve got to work again, and Bucky let out another little grunt at the pressure. Steve paused, letting him get used to it, waiting until he had Bucky’s agreement before he started to move. He hadn’t quite hit his prostate yet, so while things were more uncomfortable than painful, Bucky’s erection had flagged a little.

Eventually, he couldn’t stand waiting anymore, and he let out a plaintive whine. “I’m as ready as I’m gonna get, Steve, please…?”

Steve took him at his word, carefully extricating his fingers before looking Bucky over. “How do you want me?” he asked. Bucky once again found himself grateful that Steve was letting him set the pace on, well, everything.

“I wanna see your face, please,” he replied. He knew it was a tougher position for Steve, and on himself to an extent, but he didn’t like the idea of not being able to see him their first time. Plus, in Bucky’s limited experience with guys who knew what the fuck they were doing, that position tended to feel pretty fucking good when it came to internal stimulation.

“Of course,” Steve said, carefully moving so that he could kneel over Bucky, shifting him back against the pillows and considerately pulling one of the extras down to slide it under Bucky’s hips. He was being so sweet and solicitous - it was overwhelming. Bucky didn’t know how to process all the feelings that were being brought up inside of him, so he pushed them right back down instead.

Steve was focused on the task at hand as he positioned himself between Bucky’s spread legs, using the lube to slick himself up before leaning down to kiss Bucky again. He was tense - not quite as playful as he’d been before, and Bucky wanted to make him smile. “Nothing like figuring something out for the first time, huh?”

There was that smile. Steve pulled back and turned his head to place a kiss on one of Bucky’s kneecaps. “You’re perfect,” he replied, lifting Bucky’s hips up a little before lining himself up and moving forward, breaching him.

That felt really, really good. It had always been one of Bucky’s favorite parts, and he groaned, fisting the soft coverlet in one hand as his body worked to accommodate the sensation. When Steve began pressing forward, it was fine for a moment, until it wasn’t, and Bucky whimpered. “Wait...gimme a second…”

Steve did, perspiration beading on his forehead, holding himself still. It took considerable effort, Bucky knew, and he couldn’t help but admire how wonderful Steve looked in that moment. “Alright,” he said softly. “You can go again.”

It took a few more stops and starts before Steve was seated completely inside of him. Bucky needed a moment to adjust to the feeling of fullness and slight discomfort. Still, the angle _did_ happen to be the right one to stimulate him from within, and he let out a happy sigh when they made that discovery.

“How’re you doing, Buck?” Steve asked, obviously wanting to move but not trusting himself to quite yet. One of his big hands left Bucky’s hip to wrap around his cock instead, pumping him slowly to bring him back to full hardness. “Does that feel good?”

Bucky nodded, his back arching, which made Steve’s cock shift inside of him and hit his prostate again. “Fuck, _fuck_ ,” he yelped, happily, definitely flying at full-mast now.

“Oh, very good boy,” Steve teased. “You let me know when you want me to start moving, alright?”

Bucky groaned, nodding his head before shifting his weight once more to try and bring about the same sensation. “Move…” he gasped, nodding his head. “Please?”

“Well since you asked so nicely,” Steve replied, sliding out of Bucky and then back in, hitting that same spot and making Bucky shudder. It didn’t take Steve long to find his rhythm. He kept one hand on Bucky’s cock the whole time, working him up and teasing him right back to the edge he’d been teetering on before; his other hand gripped Bucky’s hip tightly, using it for leverage to match his thrusts.

“Wanna see you come, sweetheart,” Steve said, “you first. You think you can?”

Bucky was fairly fucking certain he could. And quickly. “Faster?” he asked desperately. “Both, faster? I can...I promise.”

Steve nodded, acquiescing to both Bucky’s requests until Bucky curled up his toes and came with a shout, covering himself and Steve’s hand with his release. He whimpered, Steve continuing to stroke him through his orgasm, the sensation bordering on overwhelming. When Steve finally released him, he brought his hand up to his mouth and, with an impish smile, licked off the spunk that had landed there. It was weird, and intimate, and ridiculously fucking sexy.

“Now you,” Bucky breathed, lifting his hips to meet Steve’s slowed thrusts in earnest. “Your turn.” He had yet to get Steve off in any form, and he wasn’t about to wait any longer for the opportunity.

Steve didn’t need to be asked twice, bringing both hands to Bucky’s hips and starting to drive in with renewed vigor. He wasn’t especially gentle, nor did Bucky want him to be, briefly wondering if his grip would leave bruises on his skin. When Steve finally came apart with a few erratic thrusts, he held himself upright for only a few seconds before collapsing right onto Bucky’s chest. Steve wrapped him up, covering his skin with kisses as he whispered more of the sweet stream of nonsense that Bucky was growing to adore.

To say he was blissed out would be an understatement, lying there under Steve’s comfortable weight, feeling him softening inside his body. He could, he decided, stay there forever. Steve seemed content to stay as well, though his kisses turned into little bites as he recovered from his orgasm and began teasing Bucky, even going so far as to tickle his side.

“Hey,” Bucky squirmed, giggling in spite of how completely undignified it was.

“Mmm,” Steve agreed, before starting to pull away. Bucky wasn’t about that, and he wrapped his arms around Steve’s shoulders fiercely.

“No.”

Raising an eyebrow, Steve looked up with a smirk. “No?”

“Just...five minutes? Then we can go get cleaned up and stuff.”

Steve ended up cuddling Bucky for what was more like fifteen minutes, which meant they were lovely and sticky by the time they separated and headed to the bathroom. Steve (because of course he did) had a shower with two separate heads, which made washing off a lot easier than it would have been in Bucky’s tiny tub.

“How come you have two?” Bucky asked as they stepped out, taking the towel Steve held out to him.

“Two what?” he replied, going to turn on the fan.

“Two showerheads.”

Steve looked surprised at the question as he crossed to the vanity, opening it up to produce an extra toothbrush, which Bucky thought might have been the _cutest thing he had ever seen_. “Well,” he said. “When I originally renovated this place I’d thought there might be someone else here with me.”

Oh. That made sense. “Peggy?”

“Mmmhmm,” he nodded. “But now, I guess, I have two shower heads because one of them’s for you.”

That was a very sweet thing to say, Bucky thought, as he took the toothbrush.

“We’re not eating birthday cake?” he asked, instead of saying something sappy in return.

“Birthday cake?” Steve echoed in that confused way that sometimes resulted from Bucky’s complete non-sequiturs.

“Yeah, cause it’s your birthday? I figured you’d have a cake or something for after.” (But if they were brushing their teeth, there was probably no cake.)

“Like a 'congratulations on the sex, and also on turning thirty-seven' cake?” Steve asked with a smirk. “No, I didn’t buy a cake.”

Bucky sighed, reaching for the toothpaste. “That’s...ridiculous. Get a cake next year.”

“Sure, Buck.”

Once their teeth were brushed, and Steve had turned out all the lights, they curled up in bed.  Bucky’s head rested on Steve’s chest and it was easy enough to tangle their legs together. It was only then that Bucky got up the courage to say the thing that had been sitting with him for weeks.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Mmm?”

“I’m kinda done with this whole trial period thing,” he shrugged, only realizing how that sounded when he felt Steve stiffen next to him. “I mean, I’m not...not done with us. But I’m done with you not being my boyfriend.” It struck suddenly him that he’d never actually asked another human to be his boyfriend before - he’d always been being asked or avoiding the question altogether.

Steve didn’t say anything for a while, though he did press a kiss into Bucky’s hair, and run his finger down his arm. “Okay,” he said quietly. “No more trial period. It’s official.”

Bucky, always one to press his luck, took that piece of good news and continued. “And I don’t want to be like…” He hesitated, thinking about what he wanted to convey. “I know work’s important, but never seeing you sucks, and I hate it. I want to see you more, that’s my like...main request. In addition to being my boyfriend.”

“I didn’t know we were doing requests,” Steve teased. “But the answer to that one is that I can’t promise you anything until later in August. If everything goes right, my part in this whole situation should be done, and it falls to Pepper to do everything else. So can you hang on for another month and a half?”

It wasn’t ideal, but Bucky nodded. “I guess so.”

“How about I make you a deal,” Steve offered, after thinking for a moment. “If you can go a month and a half without complaining that you never see me, we’ll go on a trip together. A long weekend, just the two of us. Someplace private. And I’ll turn off my phone.”

That, Bucky decided, sounded amazing. “Uh yes, awesome. I can do that. Can I still complain about other things, though?”

“You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t complaining about something,” Steve smirked.

“That’s... _offensive_ ,” Bucky squawked.

“And true,” he countered. “You’re adorably easy to get worked up about stuff.”

“That is not _even_ true!”

“Bucky, you’re literally doing it right now!”

“I am _not doing it right now_.” He hesitated, considering both his tone and the fact that he was halfway to a sitting position, glaring down at Steve with mock-offense. Steve, who looked bemused and exceedingly tolerant. “Whatever,” he grumbled, trying not to smile as he lay back down.

“Cute,” Steve teased. “You want to help me make breakfast in the morning? I can teach you how to do pancakes.”

“Mmm, yes,” Bucky agreed, before yawning. “Sounds good.”

“Goodnight, Bucky.”

“Mmmnight, Steve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mwah! Up next: a long weekend away. A very long weekend.
> 
> For my visual people, a [general sense of how I see Steve's place](https://imgur.com/a/fWssS), though please note the captions - a lot of them are more Pinterest-style inspirations than the exact vision in my head. Also, if you were curious, [this is what I mean by a prewar building](http://streeteasy.com/blog/what-is-a-prewar-apartment-building/). I just can't picture Steve Rogers in a modern building, no matter what universe I'm writing. 
> 
> Want to hang out on Tumblr? Come see me at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com).


	16. Peregrination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve promised Bucky a long weekend away. Bucky isn't sure about all the flannel.

Not complaining about Steve’s schedule for an entire month and a half proved to be much harder than Bucky anticipated. Mostly because Steve was _never_ around - in the time between his birthday and the date Bucky had marked as “Bang weekend” on his calendar, he had seen Steve in person exactly four times.

The first time had been in a meeting. Bucky hadn’t expected Steve to be there, and it was obvious Steve hadn’t known Bucky was attending. But Bucky was stepping in for Wanda while she was on vacation because Maria was _very_ impressed with his work lately. Nothing happened at the meeting, exactly, but he did sit next to Steve, and they played a little footsie under the table.

The second time had been at a fundraising auction for Natasha’s dance company, which was also _not_ sexy. However, it was fun to see Steve bidding on all the expensive items, and it was _extra_ fun when it turned out that the massage and fancy new StarkBook he’d won were presents for Bucky, delivered to him at home the next day.

( _Sneaky!_ Bucky texted, sending a picture of himself hugging the computer because his old laptop was a piece of shit that hardly held a charge.

 _I didn’t think I was being subtle, sweetness_. Steve replied.)

The third time was an actual date at Bucky’s (because Steve weirdly loved being at Bucky’s place). He gamely attempted to cook, which consisted of heating up a frozen pizza, then ordering wings from the place down the block when he forgot about said pizza and burned it to a crisp. But it was fine because they were watching baseball, and making out on the couch. It didn’t even suck when Natasha got home early and joined them. As it turned out, she and Steve had lots of opinions about baseball and enjoyed informing one another that their respective opinions were wrong. It was great.

The fourth time was the next morning after Steve spent the night in Bucky’s bed. He counted it as an additional date because it was a new day, and Steve stayed for almost the whole morning. He spent most of it kissing Bucky from head to toe until he was falling apart. It was an excellent use of a Sunday, _and_ they were only two weeks away from Bang Weekend.

So it came as something of a surprise when he got home on the Monday before Bang Weekend to find boxes addressed to him from L.L. Bean, and Arc’teryx, and REI. The boxes were sitting in the hallway near their mail slot, taking up a considerable amount of room.

“Huh,” he said to himself, before dragging them up three flights of stairs. Over four trips. It was excessive.

Inside the boxes was an assortment of clothing. Specifically, outdoor clothing. Hiking gear, rain gear, new boots, a fancy backpack, flannel shirts, special socks, and other things Bucky couldn’t identify. Worriedly, he sent a proportional response to Steve.

 

_WE ARE NOT GOING CAMPING FOR BANG WEEKEND._

 

He didn’t get anything back for a while, so he warily tried on the clothes and boots to make sure they fit. Just in case. He leaped for his phone when he heard the familiar ‘ding’ of a new text about thirty minutes later.

 

_I see your packages arrived._

_STEVE._ (Followed by eighteen angry emoji faces.)

_Calm down. We’re not going camping, I’m not that cruel. But we are going someplace where you have to go outside. Into nature._

_I live in a CITY I run on PAVEMENT why do we need to go outside when we can just NOT DO THAT???_

_This sounds suspiciously like complaining._

 

Bucky sighed, sending eight angel-face emojis before going to put all his new stuff away.

* * *

Bucky had requested off Friday and Monday for Bang Weekend. Infuriatingly, Steve still hadn’t told him exactly what he had planned. But Bucky was ready to go, standing outside his building on Friday morning with a duffel bag, and his new backpack full of all his outdoorsy crap. Steve was already five minutes late, and Bucky was getting annoyed as he watched a Mercedes SUV turn onto the street. And then stop. Directly in front of him.

“Hey,” Steve called as he rolled down the window. “Throw your stuff in the back, I don’t want to double park.”

Bucky knew, theoretically, Steve owned several cars. Expensive cars. He didn’t know how much a Mercedes SUV cost, but he had a feeling it was well over six figures. Then again, he also never expected Steve to outfit him in L.L. Bean’s finest as some sort of foreplay. The man apparently liked nice things.

So he did what he was told, tossing his things into the backseat before clambering into the front. Steve leaned over to kiss him lightly before putting the vehicle in gear.

“I didn’t know you drove,” Bucky said, marveling at Steve’s talent for maneuvering a giant death machine through narrow Brooklyn streets. Few city kids possessed such a talent.

“I’m very accomplished,” Steve teased. “You don’t?”

“I never got my permit,” he shrugged. “Didn’t need to, at first, and then other people just drove me around in college.” Truthfully, he was a little scared of learning, and he didn’t see the point. He hardly ever left the five boroughs, which were all accessible through public transit.

“I could teach you,” Steve offered. “I’ve got a couple manual transmission cars, so you could learn stick if you wanted.” Bucky opened his mouth, ready with a pun. Steve cut him off with a raised finger. “Don’t make the joke I know you want to make, it’s gonna be bad, and you’re gonna feel bad.”

That was probably true.

Bucky had taken a few road trips in college, all of which had involved five to six people crammed into a tiny car followed by lots of squabbling and hurt feelings. Road tripping with Steve was way better because Steve had a gigantic car _and_ he’d brought a cooler full of snacks and drinks.

“So you’re gonna turn your phone off, right?” Bucky asked, an hour into the drive, as he chewed on the end of a Twizzler.

“It’s already off,” Steve replied. “In my suitcase, locked away, for emergencies only.”

He grinned at that, taking another bite of the candy and sticking his bare feet up on the dashboard (because he’d taken his shoes off about ten minutes into the drive).

“Bucky…” Steve said warningly. “That’s dangerous.”

“Oh, is it, gramps?” He yelped when Steve reached over to pinch the outside of his thigh, squirming away and laughing. “Come onnnnn, it’s comfortable!”

“If we get in a crash it’d kill you!”

“This car is built like a tank! It wouldn’t even ruffle my feathers, Stevie.”

So they had a fight about the relative safety of the Mercedes G-Wagon. Bucky felt that the car would protect him, Steve felt that Bucy’s femurs would likely puncture his brain in a collision. Bucky wasn’t sure Steve understood how human anatomy worked. (In the end, he did take his feet off the dash, but only because Steve threatened to tickle him _to death_.)

By the time they stopped for gas outside of Albany, Bucky had a pretty good idea of where they were going. There wasn’t much upstate outside of the mountains, and the metric ton of outdoorsy crap Steve had bought for him indicated that they were probably headed to the Adirondacks, or something proximal. And that was kind of cool - the Barneses had taken a couple family trips to the mountains when he was little, but he figured Steve might be a bit more swanky lodge and a bit less Motel Six than ol’ George and Winnie.

He took a piss while Steve filled the car up, and on his way through the station, he spotted a tacky little Albany bear in a display near the register. It was hideous, and he loved it, so he purchased it along with more candy. He passed Steve on the way out and grinned. “Bathroom’s disgusting, enjoy yourself,” he teased.

“Hope you washed your hands,” Steve replied drily.

“I did _not_ ,” Bucky yelled after him before hopping back into the car, putting the weird little Albany bear on Steve’s seat.

Steve, to his credit, looked both baffled and amused when he returned and saw the toy. “Who’s my new friend?”

“He doesn’t have a name yet,” Bucky replied, picking the bear up so Steve could get in.

“Huh. I think I’ll call him Bucky,” Steve smirked, closing his door, and starting the car.

“Uh, no, that’s definitely not his name,” Bucky informed him. “His name is probably like...Regret, or Chagrin, or Unfathomable Sadness.”

“Doesn’t seem fair,” Steve said, reaching over to take the bear from Bucky, settling it in his lap as he headed back to the main road. “Not his fault he’s so ugly.”

“You got a soft heart, Rogers.”

Twenty minutes later, the bear had been officially christened Percival for some weird Steve-reason. Bucky was dozing against the window, drifting in and out before waking up completely when they got on another exit ramp. He was _slightly_ mortified to discover he’d been sleeping with his mouth wide open, and there was a little bit of drool on his chin. It was charming. He was sure Steve was charmed.

“Hi,” Steve said with a smile. “I’m glad you’re awake, it’s really pretty from here on out.”

He wasn’t kidding. Bucky remembered the mountains being nice, but it was different as an adult. Eventually, Steve turned onto a dirt road, and let the SUV do a bit of hard work in getting them up the mountain. They passed a couple of mailboxes on the way up before Steve turned again down a long drive. They approached a house that was built in the _style_ of a cabin but was fancier than any Little House on the Prairie crap Bucky had been worrying about.

“Wow,” he murmured. “That’s pretty. Is it yours?”

“Just for the weekend,” Steve replied. “I only own my place in the city, and a house in London.”

(Oh, sure. Only real estate in two of the most expensive cities on the planet. No big deal.)

Steve parked, and they hopped out, Bucky marveling at the house while Steve went to pop the trunk open. He had already hauled a couple bags of groceries up to the porch before he swatted Bucky on the ass while passing him. “Hey, lazy,” he teased. “You wanna help me with some of this stuff, or keep daydreaming?”

“That a rhetorical question, Steve?”

Okay, so he might have been angling for another spank. It worked. He was only human.

It took them about fifteen minutes to unload everything because Steve had bought enough groceries to feed fifty full-grown elephants (“you’re a growing boy, Barnes”). Bucky immediately set about exploring the cabin, which had two bedrooms and a game room, in addition to the very nice living area and kitchen. It also had a deck that opened out to a walkway which led to a dock. On a lake. Bucky loved that. It dawned on him why Steve had made sure swim trunks were in the package of clothes. (Though, come on, Bucky had owned swim trunks before Steve Rogers. He wasn’t completely useless.)

Best of all, the property was private. They’d seen other houses on the way up, but there weren’t any visible neighbors. The cabin itself wasn’t as fancy as Steve’s place - it was more rustic and homey than that, with signs of wear, and a lived-in feel. Bucky adored it immediately, and he told Steve so while they put their things down in the master bedroom.

Steve looked pleased, moving over to wrap his arms around Bucky from behind as they looked out onto the lake from the big picture window. “I’m glad to hear it, sweetheart,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss Bucky’s neck. “Did I tell you I missed you?”

Bucky shook his head, shivering when Steve’s breath ghosted across his skin. “You didn’t…” he sighed, closing his eyes when Steve’s hand trailed down his stomach before popping the button on his jeans.

“I missed you,” Steve said quietly, his hand pulling Bucky’s t-shirt up and inching underneath the waistband of his boxers. “Every day, thinking about you, handsome.”

Bucky’s cheeks went hot at Steve’s words - he was always hit with such a pleasurable mix of embarrassment and pride when he started handing out compliments like that.

“Gonna make it up to you,” Steve continued, Bucky’s breath hitching in his throat when Steve rubbed at the sensitive skin where his thigh met his groin.

Bucky bit his lip, nodding his head as he leaned into Steve’s touch. “Please?” he asked, which was apparently the magic word as Steve pressed him up against that big window to show him exactly how much he’d been missed.

* * *

The next morning, Steve woke Bucky up at seven o’clock by proclaiming they were going _hiking_. Bucky was not thrilled. After treating him to no less than four orgasms the day before, Steve had the _audacity_ to wake him at the ass-crack of dawn to insist on outdoor adventures rather than lazing around in bed all day? Bucky was absolutely not having it.

“No,” he proclaimed, diving back under the covers that had been so rudely pulled away from his face.

“Bucky…” Steve replied, his tone holding a warning that sent a shiver down Bucky’s spine. “You knew we were hiking.”

“Too tired. You go. I’ll wait here.”

“Nope.” Bucky flinched as Steve found an exposed toe, dragging his foot out and tickling the underside mercilessly as he squirmed and yelped. “We’re going hiking. You’re gonna get up, put some clothes on, and eat some breakfast.”

“I can’t, Steve, I’ll die. Everything out there wants to kill me.”

He heard Steve huff a sigh before standing up from the bed. Bucky took that as confirmation he’d won the argument, and was going to be allowed to sleep in peace. So it came as a great surprise when, two minutes later, Steve was back to yank the covers right off and toss them to the side, leaving Bucky naked and protesting. Steve held his phone up, a countdown clock glowing on the screen. “If you’re not downstairs and dressed in three minutes, I’m gonna make you regret it, Buck-o.” With that, he turned and walked out of the room.

Huh. Interesting. Bucky was still kind of figuring out the whole ‘Steve gets to be in charge’ thing. He liked it, pretty much all the time, so he didn’t question it. Steve would swat him, or pinch him, or order him around, and Bucky never really put up a fuss. In fact, he found himself turned on by the whole thing, which was odd because he’d never been that into the idea of a power exchange before. Still, he reasoned, it wasn’t like he thought Steve would ever take advantage, and he was fairly sure that it was all just a game. If he really didn’t want to go hiking, all he had to do was walk downstairs and say so.

However, he did actually _kind_ of want to go, it had just been fun to drive Steve crazy. Now, though, the clock was ticking. So he hopped out of bed and dug into his clothes, pulling on what he thought made him look like an Outdoorsy Person before running down the stairs.

“Four and a half minutes,” Steve tsked, glancing up from where he was working on bacon and eggs. “What am I gonna do with you?”

Bucky felt that squirmy feeling in his gut that he got when Steve made his Disappointed face. He bit his lip, putting on what he hoped was a very beguiling expression. “...punish me?” That sounded fun, and the second he said it he saw Steve’s mouth twitch up at the corners.

“Guess so,” Steve agreed. “Better come over here.”

Bucky did, that squirmy feeling not going anywhere as he stood in front of Steve, looking up at him and wondering what, exactly, punishment might entail. Steve deliberated for a second before he took Bucky by the arm, bent him over the island, and gave him five quick swats on the rear end. The swats themselves weren’t any harder than he’d delivered the day before by the car, but something about the position sent blood straight to Bucky’s dick. He whimpered in spite of himself, eyes tracking Steve’s movements as he pulled back, leaving Bucky vulnerable.

“Why don’t you stay like that while I finish cooking?” Steve said, his voice a little strangled. Bucky wasn’t about to move a muscle, still figuring out whether the position was humiliating or really fucking hot. Maybe both?

It was only when Steve told him to stand up and sit at the table that Bucky moved. Once they were both settled in, it was Steve who broached the topic of What They Were Doing. Which was good, because Bucky had wanted to discuss it. Maybe. Probably. He wasn’t sure.

“So uh…” Steve began, rubbing the back of his neck. “This whole...thing we’re doing? We haven’t really discussed the parameters.”

Bucky wrinkled his nose at the clinical sounding language, picking up a piece of toast. “Parameters?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, smiling at the face Bucky was making. “You know you don’t have to do any of this stuff, right? Just because I ask you to?”

“Yes,” he replied, rolling his eyes because that was just stupid. Of course he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to, and he didn’t think Steve would ever make him. “We talked about that before, remember? It’s just fun, isn’t it?”

Steve went quiet for a second, pushing a hand through his hair and thinking it over. “It is,” he said. “Fun, I mean. And I know we talked about it before, but we weren’t together then. It’s more important now. This stuff can get in your head, that’s all. I don’t know how much you know about any of it, officially, but we probably ought to have a safe word.”

“Ugh _no_ ,” Bucky said immediately, wrinkling his nose.

He brought Steve up short with that reply. He looked startled, and a bit like he might argue. As usual. Instead, to Bucky’s surprise, he raised an eyebrow, leaning back against his chair. “Okay. Why not?”

“Because that’s whips and chains shit,” Bucky replied. “We’re not doing that. We’re just playing. Why can’t I just say...I don’t feel like it, Steve, knock it off?”

“I guess you could say that,” Steve acquiesced after a moment, reaching for his orange juice.

“Great,” he shrugged. “So assume I want to be that way with you. Playing. All the time. Unless I tell you otherwise.”

“All the time?” Steve echoed.

“Yup.” Bucky didn’t see how defining what they were doing changed it, really. He liked it when Steve told him what to do, and Steve seemed to like giving him orders alongside taking care of him. They didn’t have to label it - it was what it was, and it appeared to be working out just fine for them. Steve always had to overthink everything like a big blond weirdo.

“So you don’t mind it?” The question was baffling to Bucky, with Steve looking maybe the tiniest bit vulnerable when he said it.

“No?” he offered. “I like it, Stevie. Why do you keep acting like I’m just, I dunno, putting up with it?”

Steve shrugged, looking down at his plate as he cleared his throat. “Just had some...dissatisfied customers in the past, that’s all.”

Well, that was officially the saddest thing Bucky had ever heard. He was moving before he thought better of it, squirming into Steve’s lap and wrapping his arms around his neck. He wasn’t exactly tiny, but Steve was still bigger than him so he could hug him properly from that position. “Fuckin’ idiot customers you got,” he mumbled, leaning in for a kiss.

The broke apart a few minutes later, Steve stroking his thumb across Bucky’s cheek affectionately. “Thanks, Buck,” he murmured.

“Welcome,” Bucky replied. He’d officially crossed into the realm of Too Many Feelings, though, so he changed the subject with a smirk. “I could kiss you again if it means we don’t have to go hiking…”

Fifteen minutes later, they were out on the trail.

Fifty-seven minutes later, Bucky discovered that he actually _really_ liked hiking because they’d gotten to a secluded spot, and Steve was jerking him off behind a tree.

Sixty-four minutes later, he had a splinter in his ass. Hiking was balls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovelies! Bang Weekend continues in the next installment, fret not. Couple of notes:
> 
> 1\. Your comments/kudos/bookmarks are my LIFEBLOOD. I so enjoy every single one that pops up in my inbox - thank you all so much, it keeps me writing!
> 
> 2\. You'll notice that this story now has a finite chapter amount. Chapter 24 will be the last "real" chapter, 25 will be the epilogue. I'm game for continuing the universe in various short prompts and fills, depending on if there's interest/people make requests for specific things they want to see.
> 
> 3\. Tumblr is [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com).


	17. More Adventurous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bang Weekend continues. Bucky acquires a new skill. Steve acquires a new sobriquet.

After the ass-splinter incident, Steve had been remarkably sweet, only laughing a little as he used the tweezers from his first aid kit to remove the piece of wood while leaving Bucky’s dignity as intact as he possibly could. (It wasn’t very intact, honestly.)

Bucky had proclaimed it was _not funny,_ sulking for the first twenty minutes of the hike back. He forgot to be in a mood, though, when Steve started talking about going to camp as a boy.

“There was a scholarship for needy kids, I guess, so we got to go to this sleepaway camp in Jersey,” he explained. “It was fun, but there was a lot I couldn’t do. I was uh...not the beacon of health I am now.”

“Not an outdoorsy kid?” Bucky guessed.

“Well…” Steve said, pushing their fingers together as they walked. “I wanted to be. But I had asthma and allergies, plus I was half-blind, had a heart murmur, and I was partially deaf in one ear. I was also about four foot nothing, and couldn’t keep weight on to save my life thanks to a digestive issue.”

“Wait, really?” he said, looking up at him curiously. “But you’re so…” Gesturing up and down at Steve’s robust form, he shrugged.

“Got over the asthma, mostly,” Steve replied. “Allergies aren’t as bad as they used to be. LASIK fixed the eyes. Still have to worry about my heart, that’s part of why I keep fit. It was also something to do in college, and I liked feeling strong, so I kept up the regimen. The digestive stuff is better, but it’s why I don’t eat as much crap as you do. And...well, you’ll notice I usually have you on my right side?”

Bucky hadn’t, but now that he thought about it, he realized Steve tended to favor said right side no matter what he was doing. “You’re still deaf in one ear?”

“Not completely, I’ve had a couple surgeries. I’m at about sixty, seventy percent on my left ear, right side’s at about ninety,” he replied. “It wasn’t easy when I was younger. I hated feeling limited by my body. Camp helped. The scholarship was actually sponsored by that youth club near your place.”

“The Ernest one?”

“Erskine, yeah,” Steve smiled. “After camp, I started playing baseball with them. Had a growth spurt around the same time, and like I said, started working out in college.”

“Wow,” Bucky replied. “That’s amazing. Do you have any pictures from before?” He’d seen the one Steve had of himself and his mom from his high school graduation, but he’d looked almost like himself then, albeit skinnier.

“Somewhere,” he said absently, in a tone that meant he probably wasn’t going to go digging them up for Bucky to see. “But I’m mostly trying to make the point that a splinter in your ass isn’t worth being a damn baby about.”

“It was a _really big splinter_!”

* * *

The funny thing about spending a long weekend with your boyfriend was that you didn’t actually have to be with said boyfriend at every moment. When they got back to the cabin, Steve went to take a nap (“old!”) while Bucky went swimming. After that, he took a shower and Steve read his book on the porch. Bucky joined him after a while, and they passed a good portion of the afternoon in a companionable silence. Domestic was the only word for it. Maybe that should have freaked Bucky out, but he honestly thought it was kind of nice.

Steve let him help with dinner, which was very generous considering Bucky’s track record with cooking anything that involved more than a microwave. However, boiling water for pasta seemed pretty un-fuck-uppable. (Still, he was proud of himself when he succeeded.)

“Best pasta I ever ate, Buck,” Steve teased him. “Better than what I got in Italy, for sure.”

“When were you in Italy?” He asked, which led to a lengthy discussion of Steve’s various and sundry jaunts around the world with Peggy during their courtship.

“...so of course I’ve booked us into the world’s shittiest hostel, and I’d sworn to Peg I got us a solo room. We get there, and all that’s left is a room that sleeps six. In bunk beds. We had one of the couples invite us to join them, and when we declined, they went about their business anyway, with us in the room.”

“You can’t call it their business. Just say they fucked.”

“That, too. Loudly. So Peggy walks over, pissed, and dumps an entire bottle of water on them in the middle of things. The guy starts screaming at her in French with his dick hanging out of his pants, and I swear to God, Buck, I thought she was just going to reach down and snap it off.”

“Which you would have loved.”

“I might have,” he agreed. “She and the guy took it outside, hollering at the manager until they moved us to a real hotel, at their expense. I let her book the rooms after that.”

“How come you were staying in hostels, anyway?”

Steve shrugged. “It was cheaper. We had good jobs, but we weren’t where we are now. That was right after we’d gotten together. Probably not the best idea to go to Europe on the cheap when you’ve just started seeing someone, but we figured it out.”

“Oh,” Bucky said, pushing his food around his plate.

Steve picked up on his action and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing just…” he shrugged. “I always wanted to go to Europe. It sounds really fun. I’ve never even been outside this part of the country.”

Reaching across the table, Steve squeezed his hand and smiled. “We could go to Europe, sweetheart. We’d have to get you a passport, but I’d like that, too.”

Bucky shrugged, still picking at the little scab in his brain that all the Peggy talk had brought up. “Yeah, but I don’t want to do fancy Europe. I want to stay in a hostel, and do dumb shit, and yell at some naked French guy, too.”

Steve’s fingers tightened on Bucky’s, and when he spoke again, he somehow managed to sound considerate without crossing the line into condescending. “Who says we can’t? I’d backpack across Europe with you, Buck.”

“Oh come on,” Bucky protested. “You don’t want five-star hotels, and like...what’s that stuff? Fwah-grah?”

“No,” Steve said with a shrug. “I want to sleep in dirty hostels, and eat pizza and gelato like we can’t afford anything else, and get confused by the public transit in Paris. If you want it, baby, we can have the most authentic European vacation ever. And when you’re sick of it and begging me for a little comfort, we can do it the other way, too.”

Bucky grinned, ducking his head. “Okay.”

(He really liked his boyfriend.)

They finished dinner, and Bucky insisted that he was going to help clean up. Steve had gotten slightly better about letting him do things like that, mostly because of Bucky’s persistence. After that, well, the evening was theirs.

“You wanna watch a movie?” Steve offered.

“Uh-uh.”

“Hmm, you wanna...read a book?”

“Nope.”

“Interesting, interesting. Guess I could get some work done…”

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Language.”

“I’m real fuckin’ sorry about that, gramps.”

That was how Bucky found himself getting chased up the stairs and into the bedroom, where Steve practically tackled him onto the mattress, tickling him mercilessly until Bucky begged him to stop. He was still catching his breath when Steve pulled back and got to his feet, fingers moving to the collar of the flannel shirt he’d been wearing (and Bucky had been snuggling up to at any available opportunity).

“Take your clothes off for me, pretty,” Steve said, tossing out the command as casually as he might have asked Bucky to pass him the remote. Bucky didn’t have to be asked twice, working to get rid of the sweats he’d put on after his shower. He wasn’t hard yet, but he knew it wouldn’t take long - any positive attention from Steve generally did the trick.

When he’d finished, he sat back on his knees expectantly as Steve got out of his own clothes, a little further along in the whole erection department than Bucky was, but not completely there yet either. “Hmm,” Steve murmured. “Might need some help…”

Bucky grinned, leaning forward eagerly. Steve liked giving him blowjobs, that much had become obvious. But Bucky _knew_ he liked getting them, too, he just didn’t always ask. Sometimes Bucky had to do the hard work of requesting the privilege. “Please, Stevie?”

“So sweet, asking me so nicely,” he teased. “How do you want it, baby?”

Bucky contemplated for a moment before rolling onto his back, head hanging just off the edge of the bed at an angle that put him upside down at the level of Steve’s hips. It was new, maybe a little scary - he’d never tried it with anyone else, though he’d jerked off to videos of it more than once. So he wanted to try. For Steve.

“Really?” Steve teased. “You think you can handle that?”

“I can do it, Daddy,” he replied, and where the fuck had _that_ come from? Bucky froze as soon as the word was out of his mouth, his eyes widening. He’d meant to say “uh huh” or “yup” or “definitely.” But the little inner voice that had been thinking of Steve that way for some time had spoken up instead. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever been as afraid of total rejection as he was at that moment.

Steve took a measured breath before responding, stepping forward as though Bucky hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary at all. “I know you can, sweetheart,” he murmured, taking another step closer, close enough that Bucky could breathe him in. “Open up for me.”

That was all Bucky needed, really, closing his eyes and opening his mouth as Steve eased himself in slowly. Everything about it was new: new angle, new sensations, new names. Bucky took a couple of deep breaths through his nose to settle himself, conscious of the way Steve smelled. It seemed a funny thing to fixate on, but there was something primal about it, and he felt his dick twitch in response. He hadn’t quite realized how much harder it was going to be to breathe with Steve right on top of him, though, and all the videos in the world hadn’t prepared him for the reality of having his airflow so restricted.

Steve must have sensed it, giving Bucky a moment to get acclimated before speaking, his voice a little shaky when he did. “Give me your hand, Buck.” When Bucky offered it, Steve held it fast with his own. “You need me to stop, you either let go of my hand or break my finger, okay?”

That seemed reasonable. Bucky made a noise of affirmation around Steve’s shaft, which made Steve shudder. He started moving after that, slow at first, almost gentle, easing Bucky into the sensation. Eventually, his thrusts picked up steam, driving a little harder as Bucky’s free hand fisted the sheets. The position wasn’t dignified, and Bucky gave a moan of distress when Steve hit the back of his throat with a thrust, his balls right up against Bucky’s nose so that he most definitely couldn’t breathe at all. He squirmed, fighting the urge to pull away. Everything was too full, too much, too _Steve_.

It would have been easy to panic, but he didn’t drop Steve’s hand. Instead, he swallowed, suppressing his gag reflex and attempting to get Steve further in. He wanted to swallow him whole, prove he could do it. He wanted Steve to fuck his face, fuck him up, and he wasn’t going to get what he wanted by being timid or afraid. He trusted his boyfriend, after all. Steve groaned in surprised when Bucky took him deeper, jerking forward and sending another little spasm through Bucky’s throat as he very nearly choked. “Fuck, sweet thing,” Steve muttered. “You look so fucking gorgeous like this. So proud of you.”

Steve really did talk a lot. Bucky had figured out early on that he didn’t know what he was saying in the moment, but it was almost always effusive praise for whatever Bucky was doing. He squirmed when Steve told him he was pretty, pressing the flat of his tongue against the velvety skin of Steve’s cock and humming to coax him into moving again.

Steve didn’t need a lot of encouragement. It didn’t take much to wreck Bucky entirely from that position, Steve’s hips pistoning while Bucky struggled to keep up. He knew there was spit and sweat and probably some spunk on his face, which should have felt disgusting but instead was _fucking awesome_. He wanted more - he wanted Steve to use him. Tie Bucky to the bed, fuck his face just like this and mess him up however he wanted for the rest of his life. Maybe for eternity. (Apparently, Steve’s dick in his mouth made him very hyperbolic.)

Unfortunately, Steve was only human, and he came with a gasp, hips stuttering forward as he spilled into Bucky’s mouth without warning. It was a surprise to Bucky, too, who wasn’t quite ready and ended up with more of Steve’s come on his face than anywhere else. He whined, chasing Steve’s cock eagerly before he could pull back, wanting to see him completely sated. Steve retreated with a groan eventually, catching his breath while he looked down at Bucky. If Bucky didn’t know better, he would say he looked, well, proud.

“Fuck, oh Jesus, sweetheart, you should see yourself right now…you look so good, baby. Never seen anything so pretty, all messed up for me.”

Bucky had the good grace to blush as Steve dropped to his knees, kissing him hard from that same position. Steve, apparently, didn’t care how messy he was. That was a relief.

“Perfect,” Steve murmured as he pulled away. “So perfect. You want me to clean you up a little, Buck?”

“Uh huh,” it was the first noise Bucky had made in a while, and he was surprised at how raw his voice sounded. “Oh…”

Steve smiled, kissing his forehead before pulling away. He headed to the bathroom for something to use, talking to him all the while. “You can sit up if you want to,” he offered since Bucky hadn’t shown any signs of moving on his own.

Bucky took the option, shifting himself back onto the bed and curling up against the pillows. He felt warm and happy, and a little like his brain was...fuzzy. Fuzzy was the right word. When Steve came back, he wiped Bucky’s face carefully with a warm washcloth, which felt so good it had him practically mewling.

“All done,” Steve smiled, dropping the washcloth on top of the clothing on the floor before wrapping Bucky up. “You want me to take care of that for you, sweet boy?”

Bucky didn’t know what he meant at first before he realized Steve was talking about the erection bobbing between his legs. He’d kind of forgotten about it.

“Don’t care,” he found himself mumbling. Huh. That was weird. Bucky couldn’t recall a time in his life when he didn’t consider his cock priority numero fucking uno. But right then, in that spacey, happy place, he was fine just being held.

“Huh,” Steve said with a smile as he reached over to grab a blanket to pull around them both. His hands rubbed Bucky’s arms, warming him up and centering him again. He did that for a long time, Bucky cuddling further into him, hiding his face against Steve’s chest. It had been a lot. He was still processing. And he appreciated Steve giving him the time as he came back to himself, just a bit.

“So…” Steve said eventually. “Daddy. That’s new.”

Bucky froze, but Steve wasn’t letting up on the rubbing, and the hugging, and the kissing. So that probably meant everything was fine. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Is that okay?”

A kiss on his forehead and a tighter hug gave him the answer before Steve ever spoke. “Sure,” he said easily. “First time anyone’s ever called me that in bed. I could get used to it.”

“Not all the time,” Bucky said immediately.

“Often as you want it or don’t want it, pal,” Steve murmured, kissing the top of his head. “You’re running the show here.”

“Thought you were running the show,” he sighed.

“Yeah, I let you think I’m running the show,” he teased. “But you’re actually calling the shots. I just do what I can to keep you happy.”

“Oh,” Bucky smiled. “I like that.”

“Thought you might,” Steve said. “You sure you don’t want me to take care of you? You seem kinda up for it...”

Bucky contemplated the question. His cock was certainly _interested_ in the proceedings, and Steve _was_ offering. “Well, I guess since I’m running the show I probab...ah, oh!”

(Steve hadn’t wasted any time in getting his hands on Bucky once he got the go-ahead. Because Steve was a really swell guy.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy balls, y'all, over 500 kudos? You are KILLING ME with how amazing you are. All your comments make my freakin' life! Please never stop leaving them!
> 
> Song title for this chapter comes from [More Adventurous](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3NHNfLvdrk%20) by Rilo Kiley. Also, up next: old friends, same problems.
> 
> Updates might be slow for a hot minute, as I am going to visit my lovely [Crockzilla](http://archiveofourown.org/users/crockzilla) as well as my little brother over the weekend. I may also be in the 'room where it happens' at some point during the trip. YOU GUYS. SO EXCITE. (No, no, I can be cool. I'm not going to cry all over myself.)
> 
> Tumblr: [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com). Leave me asks, or prompts, or whatever!


	18. Amelioration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky buys a sandwich. Because of reasons.

Coming back to the office after Bang Weekend sucked. For a lot of reasons, but mostly because it was difficult to go from having that much time with Steve to going back to seeing him once or twice a week. Granted, it was better now that he wasn’t traveling so much, and the frequency of weekend sleepovers increased, but as they headed into late September, Bucky was finding himself restless again.

Things changed on a Friday morning towards the end of the month, when Maria called him into her office. She looked pleased, for once, which was highly unusual given the fact that it seemed as though they’d been facing one crisis after another for the past six months.

“Have a seat, James,” she offered.

“Thanks…” Bucky replied warily. Being called into Maria’s office wasn’t a big deal, but having her do it so formally was, well, strange.

“So,” she said. “You know we’ve been short-staffed since Anna left us. And I know you’ve been interested in doing more with the media. I’ve been speaking with Rhodey, and we’d like to offer you the opportunity to step into a junior Public Relations Officer role.”

Bucky’s eyes went wide, because holy shit, that wasn’t what he’d been expecting. “Really?” Fuck, that was big. Wanda had told him it’d taken her two years to get promoted.

“We want to give you a trial run,” she explained. “See how you do for the next few months. If it works out, we’ll make it permanent.”

“That would be amazing,” Bucky said. “Thank you. That’s…”

“Don’t you want to ask about salary?” she interrupted, pointedly.

“Oh. Yes? Is...there...a salary?” Truthfully, Bucky was total shit with valuing himself. Steve had been incredulous that he hadn’t negotiated when he first started because apparently, Steve’s stubborn streak lent itself to always negotiating his worth.

“There is a salary,” Maria replied, sounding amused. “We were thinking five thousand more than what you’re making now. Does that sound fair?” The way she asked the question made Bucky believe that she wanted him to know it wasn’t.

“I…” he thought about how to phrase it. “Would be happy with ten?”

“Hmm,” Maria frowned, pretending to consult some papers on her desk. “I’m sorry, James, the best I can do is seven.”

Bucky almost bit, because he didn’t want to annoy her. Or anyone. Ever. But something in her tone told him to keep going. “I couldn’t do it for less than eight.”

She huffed a sigh, hiding her smile as she made a note on her paper. “You drive a hard bargain, James Barnes. I’ll have to talk to HR, but I think we can make it happen.”

* * *

Bucky was on cloud nine when he left the building for lunch, a rare treat considering he usually brought a sandwich from home. (Because he wasn’t an _idiot_ , he could make a _sandwich_.) But with an extra eight thousand dollars a year, well, he could afford something tasty from Pret.

He was in line with his sandwich when he heard a familiar voice behind him. “Bucky?”

Turning, he was surprised to find Gus. He honestly hadn’t thought about him much since things ended in May, but he found himself genuinely pleased to see him. “Hey!” he laughed. “What are you doing this far uptown?”

“I’m working part-time at a firm here this semester,” Gus said with a smile. “It’s really nice to see you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Bucky nodded. “How...oh, hang on.” He was up to pay, and he attempted to get his wallet out of his pocket while Gus moved towards the counter with him.

“Are you in a hurry?” Gus asked, reaching for his own wallet. “I’m on my lunch break if you have time to catch up.”

“Sure,” Bucky said, handing over his credit card to the woman behind the counter. “I was going to eat in the park, you want to join me?”

Gus was alright with that, and they made their way to Bryant Park after they’d paid. They settled in on a bench and started opening up their sandwiches. Bucky studied Gus as he twisted open the top of his San Pellegrino. Still handsome, that hadn’t changed, with that curly blond hair Bucky had enjoyed running his fingers through, alongside his very sweet smile and, truth be told, a killer set of abs underneath his clothes. Gus had been great, he just hadn’t been meant for Bucky.

“So how’s life?” Bucky asked, opening his drink as well and taking a sip.

“Life’s really good,” Gus shrugged, smiling. “My internship was amazing. They hired me, but obviously, I have to finish school, so I’m working part-time for them now. It’s a relief to not have to worry about what I’m going to do after graduation.”

“Excellent, well done,” Bucky teased, swallowing the food in his mouth. “They recognized your obvious superior talent for constitutional law.”

Gus demurred, reaching for his sandwich again. “You remembered it, how perceptive. And here I thought you were always bored.” He started laughing at the expression on Bucky’s face. “Sorry. I know you were bored. How about you, how are things?”

“Also really good,” he said. “I actually uh...got promoted today? This is my, you know, celebratory sandwich. I went big with the curried chicken salad.”

“Wow, fancy stuff, Bucky,” Gus teased, nudging his knee. “Good for you, that’s fantastic.”

It _was_ fantastic, and Bucky was glad to share his big news, now that he knew Gus was doing well. It made him feel like less of a heel for breaking up with the guy. Or, at least, it gave him some comfort to know that Gus hadn’t been living in such a state of misery since the breakup that he’d dropped out of school and/or resorted to hard drugs. (Not that he ever really would have expected it, but he’d spent a significant amount of time worrying that Gus loathed him and told anyone who would listen what an evil monster Bucky Barnes was.)

“So uh…” he offered after a slight lull in the conversation. “I realize I was kind of a jerk to you, and I wanted to apologize properly for stringing you along. You have every right to hate me, but I’m glad you don’t.”

Gus looked thoughtful, pushing a hand through his hair, his eyes cutting away from Bucky for a moment. “Honestly? I did kind of hate you for a while. But it’s…” He hesitated, Bucky suspected because he wanted to figure out how to say what he needed to without hurting Bucky’s feelings. “I needed to learn that lesson. The one you taught me. And it’s that I can’t wait for someone else to figure out what they want, going along to get along. Because the thing the other person wants might not be me.”

Bucky nodded, frowning and fiddling with the twist-top on his drink. “I uh...yeah. I’m really shitty with commitment. Or I was. I don’t know. But I let you think...I led you on.”

“Mmm,” Gus agreed, nodding his head. “But it’s okay. It...actually, well, there’s someone new. Someone important.” He was blushing a bit, and that alone made Bucky happy. “Michael. He’s great.”

“Congratulations,” Bucky said, meaning every word of it. “You deserve someone great.”

“What about you?” Gus asked after another pause. “Anyone worth committing to?”

Bucky thought about it, debating how to answer. “There’s someone,” he said slowly. “It’s kind of complicated, but we’re figuring it out. And I think it’s...important, too.”

(Life was amazing, Bucky decided, because Gus looked genuinely happy for him at that news.)

They parted twenty minutes later with a hug and a peck on the cheek outside Stark Tower, alongside a promise to catch up again soon. Bucky headed upstairs, and within about ten minutes got a text from Steve, which was always a way to make a good day even better.

 

 _Come up to my office. I told Danny we have a meeting_.

 

Interesting. Steve hadn’t had him up since the incident in April. It was out of an abundance of caution, of course, but he figured maybe Steve had gotten wind of his promotion and wanted to congratulate him in person. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t going to pass up the chance to see his boyfriend in the middle of the day (despite the fact he already had plans to go over to Steve’s place that night).

What he wasn’t expecting was Steve’s stormy countenance when he entered the office. “Close the door please, James,” he said, since Danny was standing right there.

Bucky, confused but willing to play whatever weird game Steve wanted, did as he was told before turning back to find the man looking decidedly annoyed.

“So...hi?” he offered, smiling. “What’s got you all cranky?”

Steve, who looked like an angry goat, scowled even more. “How was your lunch date?”

Now Bucky was very confused. “Uh, what?”

“The guy you were hugging in front of the building. I saw you.”

Bucky rolled his eyes; he couldn’t help it. Steve was an idiot “Are you kidding me? That’s Gus. My friend? We ran into each other at Pret.”

Steve’s brows knitted together, and whatever little green monster was controlling his brain didn’t seem to know where to direct its bile. It eventually decided to double down on stupidity. “You kiss all your friends like that?”

“What?” Bucky exclaimed. “I didn’t kiss him!”

“I saw you!”

“I don’t know what you think you saw, but you need to get your eyes checked. I kissed his cheek, maybe.”

“You kiss all your friends goodbye?”

“Oh my god, you are an _idiot_ ,” he snapped because if Steve wanted to pick a fight, Bucky wasn’t in the mood. “First of all, no, I don’t kiss all my friends goodbye because I didn’t use to date all my friends. And yes, I used to date him. No, I am not currently dating him. And if you’re going to be a jealous dumbass who calls me up here under false pretenses and accuses me of stuff I didn’t do, then I’m fucking leaving.”

Steve looked slightly cowed as Bucky crossed his arms over his chest. However, Steve Rogers was also a stubborn little shit when he wanted to be, Bucky was learning. As a result, his ridiculous boyfriend chose to respond with an extra dose of maturity that truly befit his thirty-seven years on earth. “You used to _date him_? Like in college?”

“No, like in May,” Bucky snapped before thinking better of it.

“Like in May when you were dating me, in May?” Steve replied, his eyes narrowing.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“I just need to be clear about how many people you’re dating, Bucky. I’m really curious.”

That did it. He’d been annoyed, now he was angry, and he advanced on Steve with righteous indignation, eyes blazing. “One guy, Stevie. I was dating Gus. Dating. He wasn’t my boyfriend, let’s be real clear on that. We were dating, and fucking, with me pretending I didn’t want you while I did it. Because if you’ll recall, that was the period of time when you were leading me around by the dick.” Bucky was in Steve’s face at that point, poking him in the chest with an outstretched finger. “And for your fucking information, I ended things with him the _day after_ our first date. So you can just fuck right off, Steve Rogers.”

A million different emotions flashed across Steve’s face before he settled on, once again, escalating the conflict. “ _You_ told _me_ there wasn’t anyone to be jealous of.”

“Because there _wasn’t_ , you big dummy!” Bucky replied, punching him in the shoulder. “Could you stop trying to win this fight, and listen to me?”

Steve opened and shut his mouth a few times, which made him look like a fish. Bucky rolled his eyes and tried again. “Look, Stevie, you want to pretend punish me for kissing my friend on the cheek? Fun, yeah, let’s play that game. You want to really be pissed and accuse me of cheating on you? Fuck that. I’m not playing.” He took a step back, holding his hands up as Steve visibly deflated.

“Shit, Bucky,” he said after a moment, letting out a sigh. “I didn’t...my temper…it’s been a rough day...”

“I guess I’m kinda getting to know your temper,” Bucky agreed. “Hair trigger, apparently. But if you really thought I’d fuck around on you, then we’ve got some shit to work on.”

Steve hesitated, pushing a hand through his hair. “No. I...don’t think that, not really.”

“Then what the fuck, Stevie?” he replied, scowling.

“I got into it with one of the board members this morning, then when I got back to the building I saw you and...Gus, I guess, standing outside. I was already mad, and then that just...I came straight up here and sent you that text before I thought it through,” he admitted. “And then you were here, and I wasn’t gonna, you know, _not_ follow through on being an asshole.”

Well, that was hilarious. And a little upsetting, if he thought too much about Steve compensating for a bad day by picking a fight. But it probably wasn’t going to be a regular occurrence, he figured. It wasn’t like he met with the board every day. So Bucky found himself cracking a grin in spite of himself. “You mean you could have just like...thought about this for two seconds, realized you’re a stubborn idiot, and saved us both the trouble?”

“Probably,” Steve said gruffly. “Sorry.”

Bucky had been waiting for the apology, for Steve to admit that he was a complete moron. He would have been happier with a huge display of emotion - Steve wearing his heart on his sleeve telling Bucky precisely why he was sorry, asking for his forgiveness. But Steve wasn’t really that sort of guy. He was excellent at the grand gestures of romantic first dates and meticulously planned weekends away, Bucky was learning. Not so much with the vulnerability of having a conversation about his feelings.

Still. He was going to take pity on his boyfriend because Steve did look sufficiently cowed. So he leaned up for a hug, shaking his head and sighed. “Apology accepted, I guess. And here I was having such a good day, too.”

“You were?” Oh good, Steve sounded guilty. Which he should. “What happened that was so good, pal?”

Bucky shrugged as he pulled back, playing coy. “Well now I dunno if I want to tell you. You’re being a total dick, so…”

“Oh come on, baby,” Steve wheedled. “I’m sorry, let me make it up to you. Tell me about your day.”

So, Bucky let Steve coddle him a little, milking his guilty conscience for all it was worth until they were curled up on the couch, Bucky’s head tucked under Steve’s chin.

“It’s not like a _huge_ deal, it’s just...I got a promotion.”

“What!” Steve exclaimed. “Bucky, that’s great! I had no idea you were in the running for one.”

That made Bucky feel good - as there was some tiny, insignificant part of him wondering if Steve knew someone who knew someone who made it happen. It was a ridiculous thought because Steve hadn’t told anyone about what was going on between them, but still. The notion had been there. “Neither did I,” he admitted. “Maria called me in and offered it to me on a trial basis. And I negotiated for a better raise than they were originally going to offer me.”

“Look at you, tycoon,” Steve teased. “That’s wonderful, sweetheart, I’m really proud of you.”

“Thanks,” he said with a smile. “That was the only reason I was even out at lunch, you know. I was buying a celebratory sandwich.” He didn’t always need Steve to treat him - sometimes he could take care of himself.

“Shit,” Steve sighed. “Now I feel like an even bigger jerk.”

“Good. You should,” he smirked, which got him tickled.

Said tickling seemed like it might be leading somewhere when a chime went off on Steve’s computer, and he sighed. “Damn it, I have a conference call.”

Bucky pouted; he couldn’t help it. He never got to go to Steve’s office, and instead of using their time productively, they’d had a fight.

“Don’t look so sad, pretty,” Steve teased. “You’d be bored in here with me on the phone.”

Bucky, a genius, shrugged his shoulders a little bit. “Not...necessarily.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

That was how Bucky ended up kneeling on a cushion underneath Steve’s desk, the man’s legs spread wide while Bucky held his cock in his mouth. It was illicit and perfect, doing something so filthy while his boyfriend occasionally murmured an “hmm” or an “I see” on the phone. Steve had made Bucky promise not to actually suck him off because he needed to pay attention to the call. (Though apparently, the call wasn’t anything super secret since Bucky was allowed to be there at all.) The mouthful of dick was just to keep him quiet, according to Steve. Every so often Steve’s hand would drift down, brushing through Bucky’s hair absently. Bucky’s knees hurt and his jaw ached, but he loved every single second of the thirty-minute call, looking up with wide eyes when Steve finally put down the phone.

“Shit, Bucky,” he breathed with a smile, looking down and shaking his head. “The things you get me to do.”

Bucky squirmed, happy for the praise. “You look so good like that,” Steve murmured. “I could have a fuckin’ board meeting in here, room full of people, nobody’d ever know you were there.”

Bucky’s whole face went hot at the suggestion, the idea sending a thrill from the top of his head down to the tips of his toes. “Oh, honey,” Steve practically purred. “You like that, don’t you? Is it that you’d know you could get caught? Or is it the idea of an audience?”

The audience thing didn’t bother Bucky in theory, though he wasn’t sure about it in practice. He knew he liked the idea of showing off and making Steve happy, though, and he moaned when the man’s hands threaded through his hair again.

“You do,” Steve murmured, starting to set a rhythm as he pulled Bucky’s head back, then down, wanting something different now that he was off the phone. (And if Danny was wondering why they were having such a long meeting, well, Bucky didn’t give a damn.) “Maybe I’ll do that,” he said. “Next time the shareholders are...shit, baby, that’s so good...mmm, bring you up to the boardroom and fuck you over the table...lick you open and let them watch…oh Jesus, Bucky, your god damn _mouth..._ ”

Steve, as it turned out, led a rich fantasy life. Bucky didn’t really mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos, comments, you guys are amazing! Also, the image of Bucky giving Steve head under a desk may or may not have been the image in my head that inspired this entire AU. Sorrynotsorry! 
> 
> Hope this gives some closure to those of you who liked Gus! I'm still traveling so updates will continue to be slow (and omfg _Hamilton_!)
> 
> Up next: the sniffles.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has left me a fun ask or followed me on Tumblr - I'm more engaged over there than I have been in a while. Y'all are great! [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com) if you want to say hi and/or yell at me.


	19. Sick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets a cold. Then he gets bored.

Bucky never got sick, which was a small miracle considering his diet and sleep schedule. So when he came down with a cold the first week in November, he thought he could power through it. He went out with Natasha and Kate and Clint the first night he felt bad, and he went to work the next week. It was only on Thursday, when he nearly hacked up a lung at his desk, that Maria sent him home with a stern warning _not_ to bring that shit into the office where he could infect other people. So he went back to Brooklyn, picking up some NyQuil from the bodega before he curled up in bed and started praying for the sweet release of death. He really didn’t feel good at all. Probably shouldn’t have tried to push through it, now that he thought about things.

He slept fitfully, tossing and turning, waking up only to stagger into the bathroom to piss, or to get himself water, or cough until he felt like he couldn’t cough anymore. Some of those coughs brought up some really disgusting mucus. It was fucking gross. By Saturday, he was unable to get out of bed for even the most basic necessities. Natasha was there sometimes, he was pretty sure, talking to him. Occasionally her face was hovering over him, looking worried, and at one point he definitely felt her picking up his hand and hitting his cheek. That was strange. Why would she hit him?

There were bees in his dreams. Millions of them. He felt like they were stinging him all over his body and he was just so _god damn hot_. The more he hit at them, the worse they got, and he didn’t think it was possible to go out Wicker Man-style from a dream, but he honestly wasn’t sure.

The next thing he was aware of in _actual_ reality was someone’s hands on his shoulders, shaking him lightly. “Bucky,” came a voice that sounded a lot like Steve’s voice, but that was stupid because Steve didn’t have a key to their apartment.

Oh. Natasha’s voice was there, too. That was nice. Natasha had a key. Natasha must have let Steve in.

“...take him…” He heard that, and he protested mightily as the two invaders started putting clothes on him since he was _hot,_ and sleeping in his boxers was _fine_. He was making a game attempt at kicking off the socks Natasha had shoved onto his feet when Steve’s arms went under his knees and his shoulders, picking him up bridal style. Bucky moaned in discomfort because his skin felt like it was on fire and he just wanted to go back to sleep.

Once they were out of the apartment, he heard Steve swear several times at their shitty, broken elevator. Then, upon exiting the building, he whined when the cold November air hit him. (But at the same time oh _God_ it felt good because he was so miserable). Steve was putting him down...smelled good...oh, the car. Also good. Natasha was there, he could tell, kissing his forehead and saying something to Steve about a doctor. He didn’t care. He curled up on the seat, his head in Steve’s lap as Monty drove. (He was pretty sure it was Monty. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure the car wasn’t flying.)

“Bucky, you gotta sit up a little, baby,” Steve said eventually, nudging him awake. “We’re gonna go in the back of my building, take the service elevator, so you don’t have to be outside.”

That was a lot of words to process, though he did manage to follow the first instruction of sitting up. He let Steve drag him along, and then oh, he was magically in Steve’s wonderful, comfortable bed. It was so much better than his stupid, squeaky bed that he sighed in delight, falling asleep immediately.

He was rudely awakened by a stranger in the room, prodding and poking him. He whined, jerking away from the man’s touch, which sent him directly into Steve’s broad chest. Because Steve was there, holding him. He hadn’t noticed, what with the poking and all.

“...alright...just the doctor...relax…” Steve soothed, his voice drifting in and out as his big hand smoothed Bucky’s hair back from his clammy forehead.

Bucky could relax. He was good at relaxing, even with a stranger touching him and bothering him when all he wanted to do was sleep. He heard Steve and the doctor talking, then cried out when the doctor gave him a shot of something because the shot was on his ass and it _hurt_ and fuck doctors and shots and being sick. The evil doctor also forced him to drink a thick liquid that was _disgusting_. He started actually crying when Steve began undressing him because he was too hot and then too cold over and over again. He couldn’t settle on any sensation other than abject misery.

He was pretty sure the doctor was gone when Steve put wet washcloths on his arms and legs. That was good, because the small part of him that was still himself didn’t want anybody bearing witness to the way he sobbed when that happened.

It got worse before it got better, and he was only dimly conscious of Steve holding him against his chest, rocking him and apologizing to him, or helping him throw up into a bucket, or wiping down his face and torso.

By the time he fully came around, he was drenched in sweat and felt like he’d been hit by a fucking train. He was wearing nothing but sweat-soaked boxers, and as he turned his head to figure out why and how he was in Steve’s bed (because he didn’t really remember getting there), he found the man himself sleeping upright in an armchair, his cheek propped on his hand. It was morning, or maybe afternoon, with sunlight peeking in through the closed blinds. Bucky was grateful for the reprieve from bright light, considering his headache.

Unsurprisingly, he desperately needed to use the facilities, but his body was not cooperating in the slightest. When he attempted to stand up, he promptly collapsed, his legs going right out from under him. He grabbed for something solid and ended up knocking a bottle of Gatorade off the bedside table. That woke Steve, who jumped up with a start. “Bucky...hey, kiddo...” he said, a little bleary as he took in the scene. “It’s okay, you’re okay…”

He was at Bucky’s side in an instant, helping him up to sit back down on the bed. “The fuck,” Bucky managed, his voice coming out a harsh croak before he started coughing - a deep, hacking cough that started him shaking all over again. “The _fuck_.”

“Doc’s pretty sure it’s pneumonia,” Steve replied, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “How long you been feeling bad?”

Bucky thought about it, going over the timeline in his head. Sniffles for a week, a cold for the week after that.  But, of course, he’d been dutifully ignoring it, because he’d had work to do. And because he’d wanted to go out. Having fun trumped taking care of oneself in the hierarchy of things Bucky wanted to do. Mistake. “Dunno,” he lied, still shivering as he looked up at Steve. “Cold. Gotta piss.”

“Yeah, okay,” Steve agreed, helping him to his feet, and keeping a tight arm around him to ensure he remained upright. They made their way to the bathroom slowly, where Bucky endured the not-at-all-fun indignity of Steve helping him take care of business. After that, Steve bundled him back into bed, dropping a hand to his forehead. “I think your fever’s broken,” he said. “The doctor gave you a shot with some antibiotics last night, and dropped off a prescription.”

(The fact that Steve had an on-call doctor who could pick up prescriptions at midnight wasn’t lost on Bucky, but he was too tired to think about it right then.)

“My ass hurts,” Bucky replied, because he hadn’t noticed it in the initial onslaught of pain and misery that had overtaken him when he woke up, but his right cheek was feeling as though it had been put into a vice.

“Yeah that’s...where the shot went,” Steve replied, one hundred percent trying not to smirk. “You weren’t very happy.”

“Uh, yup,” he agreed. “Hurts.”

“Yeah, well, your fever’s broken, so I’m not gonna feel too sorry for you, pal,” Steve shrugged.

“Sorry,” Bucky sighed, looking up at Steve plaintively as the man sat down on the edge of the bed. “Shoulda told you I was sick.”

“Probably,” Steve agreed, looking at him fondly, but with worry still evident on his face. “Nat called me in a panic - said she couldn’t wake you up. You freaked us out pretty good, Buck. But I think you’ll live.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” he grumped. “Feel like shit.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Steve smiled. “You gonna be a good patient, or an asshole?” As he said it, he reached down to get the upended Gatorade bottle, twisting the lid off before helping Bucky sit up and drink it.

Once he’d downed about half the liquid, Bucky considered the question. “Probably both,” he said finally.

“That’s about what I figured,” Steve smiled. “You want to text Natasha, tell her you’re alive? I think you scared the shit out of her.”

Bucky did, and he wanted to drink a lot more Gatorade, too. He didn’t feel up to eating anything, though, and the smell of Steve’s breakfast made him legitimately nauseous when he brought it back to the room so he could keep an eye on Bucky.

“Ugh. That banana smells like ass.”

“You smell worse,” Steve replied with a smirk. “Be nice, and I’ll give you a bath later.”

Bucky could be nice. Though a lukewarm bath while he was still really sick, he discovered, wasn’t exactly the sexy adventure he’d hoped his first time in Steve’s tub would be. Still, it was nice to be taken care of, with Steve running a sponge over his skin gently. For perhaps the first time in his life, his cock had absolutely no interest in Steve Rogers when he reached that particular portion of Bucky’s anatomy, but that was fine - Bucky figured he’d lost his dignity plenty the night before. Steve had seen him at his worst and still liked him. So that was something.

The bath ended up tiring him out, so he didn’t protest when Steve babied him to a ridiculous extent afterward, toweling him off and getting him dressed in a warm hoodie and a pair of sweats. They went back to bed, where Steve wrapped him up tight and turned the television on. “You want to watch that show with the guy who burps?”

That was surprising. Steve and Bucky’s tastes coincided on a lot of things, but Steve was either too old or too serious to understand _Rick and Morty_ , no matter how often Bucky tried to explain it. So having him offer to let Bucky watch it was pretty surreal.

“Um...am I dying?” he asked. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

Steve barked out a laugh. “Jesus, Bucky. No, I’m trying to be nice to you. Apparently that’s a foreign concept.”

Bucky smiled, butting his head into Steve’s chest and shrugging. “Sorry, daddy.” The name still caught him by surprise sometimes, slipping out when he felt especially happy, or brave, or loved. And he did feel loved when he was with Steve, pretty much all the time, even if he hadn’t said it out loud. (Plus there was that little part of Bucky that wondered, maybe, if it was one-sided, and Steve wouldn’t say it back.)

For his part, Steve harrumphed, “forgiven, this time.”

* * *

It turned out that pneumonia was a “serious illness” that one needed to “recover from carefully.” That was what Steve said, anyway, though Bucky thought it was bullshit because he felt fine by Tuesday morning. He’d spent Sunday and Monday curled up in Steve’s bed, or on the sofa when the housekeeper came and changed the sheets. (Housekeeper! He had a housekeeper! Being at Steve’s place during the daytime was just one fun revelation after another.)

However. On Tuesday, Bucky was ready to return to work, in his own estimation, and he whined when Steve told him that he wasn’t allowed to go back for that entire week.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he protested on Tuesday night, sitting at the breakfast bar of the kitchen island while Steve worked on dinner. (Steve had taken Monday off to be with him, but he’d gone into StarkTech that morning. Bucky’d had visions of himself as Donna Reed vacuuming in pearls, there to greet his man when he got home from a long day at the office. In the end, he’d been too tired to do much more than shower and change his clothes before sleeping for a few hours.)

“You’re not fine,” Steve responded. “You get shaky walking from the bedroom to the kitchen. You’re still sick.”

Bucky chewed on that for a minute. “Okay. I’m not fine. But I’m bored.”

Steve gave him a withering stare as he took the pot of noodles off the heat to drain it. “You have four hundred channels on the television, a million books, a laptop, this entire place to yourself, and you’re bored?”

Pouting, Bucky reached out to steal a crouton from the salad. “Yup,” he said, popping the ‘p’ extra loud since he knew Steve hated it. He didn’t mean to be a jerk, he’d just been cooped up all fucking day. It happened.

“I know what you’re doing,” Steve replied. “You’re trying to piss me off so I’ll play with you.”

“I…” Well, he wasn’t _completely_ wrong. Bucky shrugged, a smirk playing across his features.

Steve considered him for a moment. “If I do something. _If_. It’s going to be low-key, and you have to shut up about being stuck inside the rest of the week.”

“What does low-key mean?”

“That it doesn’t have anything to do with sex.”

Bucky had been afraid of that, though he had to admit he wasn’t exactly feeling up to getting his temperature spiked with a lot of physical activity. Still, he had to at least pretend, for posterity’s sake. “Ugh, _fine_ ,” he grumbled, which made Steve’s mouth twitch up at the corner in that stupid, sexy way Bucky liked.

“Good boy,” Steve said easily. “Go into the den and sit on one of the cushions on the floor, next to my spot.”

Bucky knew what that meant, and he rushed to do what he was told. Well, actually, he walked slowly and carefully because he was still shaky on his feet, but the intent was there. He picked up one of the comfy cushions that could double as seating, dropping it to the floor next to Steve’s spot on the couch. Settling in on it, he curled his legs up behind him and lay his head against the soft leather of the sofa, drifting off within a couple of seconds.

“Don’t you look nice and relaxed,” Steve’s voice rumbled a few minutes later, waking Bucky from the doze he’d fallen into. Yup, definitely still sick.

“Hi,” Bucky said intelligently, half-asleep.

“Hi, sick-o,” Steve teased as he settled in on the couch with his food, resting the tray on his knees. Only one plate, Bucky noticed, though he’d brought in two glasses of water. He watched Steve curiously while he got himself settled and reached for his fork. Bucky briefly wondered if the game was that he had to sit there and starve while Steve ate dinner. That didn’t seem like fun. He was about to protest when Steve used his right hand to pick up a piece of chicken and offer it to Bucky.

From his fingers.

Oh.

That was new and exciting, plus a little bit weird. Bucky’s nerves were twitching as he leaned forward, obediently taking the proffered food from Steve’s fingers.

“So good,” Steve practically purred, Bucky preening at the praise.

He wasn’t going to think about how sexy it was to eat right out of Steve’s hand. Because if he thought about how sexy he found all the games Steve played with him, he’d find himself on the Internet looking at websites like Fetlife, where there were entire communities of people who played games like that. And as far as Bucky Barnes was concerned, he and Steve Rogers had _invented_ these fucking games.

The little morsels of food kept coming as he and Steve worked their way through the plate together. Bucky was blissed out by the end of it, his head dropping to Steve’s lap once the tray was moved to the coffee table. Steve hummed, stroking Bucky’s hair. “You’re so cuddly when you’re being good,” he teased. “Isn’t that more fun than being a brat?”

“Mmmno,” Bucky replied, not even protesting a little when Steve’s arms came around him to pull him up and onto the couch.

“Liar,” Steve laughed, helping him get comfortable with his head on Steve’s lap again. “You feel okay, though? Not too worked up?”

Bucky shrugged. He felt fine; he hadn’t had a coughing fit since that morning, and though he was still impossibly tired, the antibiotics were working. “Uh huh,” he nodded. “We gotta try that again when my dick’s working though, Stevie. I liked it.”

“Yeah,” Steve said quietly. “I liked it, too.”

* * *

Bucky had promised Steve he’d stop complaining about being cooped up indoors, but by Friday he was climbing the _fucking walls_ with boredom. There were no more movies to watch or books to read. Video games were stupid, computer games were stupid, TV was stupid. He hated every single entertainment option available to him, and by the time Steve got home, he was itching to do _something_. So he got insufferably bratty. Again. He knew he was doing it, but he couldn’t help it. He needed stimulation.

So Steve gave it to him after they’d gotten into a fight about what movie to watch. (Steve reasonably suggested a comedy, Bucky insisted all movies were garbage. It hadn’t worked out well.)

“You are impossible,” Steve informed him. “And you’re driving me crazy with the fidgeting.”

“I’m _bored,_ and I’ve watched _every movie in the universe already_.”

“You’re not at all hyperbolic, Bucky, I like that about you.”

Bucky’s response was to kick the arm of the couch, making it creak. It wasn’t his finest moment, and he could practically hear Steve grinding his teeth.

“Fine,” he gritted out. “Go upstairs and take your clothes off.”

Well, that had taken a turn. Bucky wasn’t about to argue as he scrambled off the couch. His libido wasn’t exactly back, but he’d definitely considered the idea of masturbating in the shower that morning. With Steve paying attention to him, he was pretty sure he could get it up.

So when Steve walked into the bedroom with the sketchbook Bucky had given him for his birthday, alongside a set of pencils, Bucky was surprised.

“Um.” He had been arranging himself into what he considered his Most Sexy and Come Hither position.

“Yeah,” Steve said, a smirk on his face. “You’re very inspirational when you’re obnoxious, pal. You might want to pick a comfortable position because you’re going to be holding it for a while.”

Fucking _Steve_.

An hour later, though, he had to admit that there was something meditative about watching Steve sketch. All he had to do was lie there, enjoying the way Steve’s eyes would flick up from the page to take in some detail of Bucky’s anatomy before looking back down. They stayed that way for ages, quiet aside from an occasional warning for Bucky not to move.

“Can I see?” he asked when Steve declared he was finished.

Steve hesitated, looking shy. He closed the lid on his pencil case, tapping it nervously a few times before he spoke. “Oh, Bucky, I don’t know...I haven’t done this in ages. It’s not very good.”

He pouted. Steve couldn’t resist a pout. Reluctantly, the sketchpad was handed over. The drawing was excellent, from Bucky’s perspective, though his knowledge of fine art was limited. It was weird to see himself on the page, but it was beautiful, too. Steve had captured something about him, which felt strange to say, but it was the same thing he saw in himself when there was a photograph of him taken at an especially happy moment. “Wow,’ he breathed, looking up with wide eyes. “You’re really talented.”

“Aw, come on…” Steve managed, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I mean it,” he replied quietly. “This is amazing. Thank you.”

Steve looked pleased with that, his cheeks turning pink. “You’re welcome, sweetheart,” he said quietly. “I’m gonna wash my hands, alright?”

Bucky nodded, going back to studying the sketch. He was still looking by the time Steve returned, though he’d taken a minute to get under the covers. “You should do this more,” Bucky commented as Steve slid into bed next to him.

“Hmm? Oh, maybe,” he said, reaching over to take the sketchbook and put it on the bedside table. His arms circled Bucky’s waist, pulling him back into the little spoon spot. “I don’t have as much time to do it as I’d like.

“You should make time,” Bucky said quietly. “You looked happy.”

Steve was quiet, pressing a kiss to Bucky’s shoulder and huffing out a breath against his skin. “I looked happy because it’s you, Bucky. You make me happy.”

 _I love you_ was lurking in the back of Bucky’s throat, but he tamped it down. It had barely been six months since they’d started dating, only four since they’d made it official. But the thought was there. It had been coming more and more often lately. It terrified and thrilled him all at once. Fighting the urge, he cleared his throat.

“You make me happy, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Six hundred kudos! Y'all! Holy crap! So much love!
> 
> Up next: plot! Or: shit hits the fan. 
> 
> I've been enjoying all my Tumblr asks, so feel free to keep hitting me up at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com). I'm planning on dropping at least one Kinktober fic, possibly two, depending on my schedule.


	20. Sabotage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Listen all y'all, it's a sabotage.

Everything was fine until it wasn’t. It was a normal Wednesday, just after Thanksgiving, which turned into a frantic scramble when an unexpected press release from XanCorp announced a surprise press conference. A press conference during which Alexander Pierce systematically undermined every single major new initiative StarkTech had been working on for the past year.

Their stock price plummeted, people panicked, and everything went to shit.

Bucky had never seen the entire company in crisis mode, but he got a crash course in it over the course of that afternoon, as well as the week following. Everyone was in damage control mode and Bucky was putting in ten, twelve, fourteen hour days, alongside the rest of his team, to try and stem the overwhelming tide of bad news.

Because the real bitch of it was that Alexander Pierce wasn’t that _good_. His company wasn’t that innovative. There had been a leak. A big one. From inside StarkTech. And the information kept on coming out. Pierce had a new bombshell almost every single day.

Throughout the entire crisis, Steve was completely out of pocket. He didn’t return texts often, and he didn’t answer his phone when Bucky had a rare moment to call. Bucky knew he was busy, of course, and that things he’d been working on for over a year had been completely fucked over by the leak. He’d gleaned that much from listening to office gossip.

But still. It hurt a little that his boyfriend forgot he existed when shit hit the fan.

Maybe more than a little.

Plus there was the fact that since his promotion, Bucky hadn’t been enjoying work all that much. The crisis was exacerbating that fact, but all the parts of his job he’d excelled at as an assistant were diminished now that he’d been promoted. He didn’t know what to do about that, but the general sense of unhappiness lingered in the back of his mind as he wrangled media calls and wrote statements.

Wanda dragged him out for drinks with some of their colleagues on a Friday night, a week and a half into the shit, claiming they all needed the break since they’d have to work at least part of the weekend. It was a motley crew, and everyone was punchy and tired. The topic inevitably turned to gossip and speculation about the leaker.

“Had to be someone from R&D,” Brock said, taking a swig of his gross looking dark beer.

“No way,” Peter shot back. “Half the information that XanCorp had couldn’t have come from R&D. It’s gotta be someone from marketing - they knew about all the promotional stuff.”

“What if it’s someone higher up?” America countered. “Someone who’d be privy to all of it?”

Kamala, one of America’s friends who worked in finance, scoffed at that. “Like what, Jane Foster’s gonna defect to XanCorp, so she’s selling Pierce our secrets?” Bucky didn’t know Kamala well, but he liked her already. She was apparently a rising star under the mentorship of StarkTech’s CFO, a woman named Carol Danvers, who terrified and amazed Bucky in equal measure.

“No,” Brock shrugged. “Not Foster. Steve Rogers might. I heard he and Stark were on the outs.”

Bucky nearly spat out his beer. “What!?” he exclaimed before thinking better of it. “Bullshit. Steve Rogers is like...he _made_ StarkTech.”

“Pepper Potts made StarkTech,” Wanda replied. “Steve and Tony wouldn’t be half as successful as they are without her.”

Which, fair point. But still, Bucky wasn’t going to stand for someone slandering Steve. Especially not Brock Rumlow. “Okay,” he shrugged. “She did. But I’m pretty sure Steve and Tony get along.”

(As he said it, though, he realized he wasn’t sure. Steve was careful to keep things about work close to the vest.)

Bobbi Morse, a terrifyingly tall blonde from Phil Coulson’s HR team, shook her head. “They don’t. They fight all the time - people have filed complaints about them, getting into it at meetings and making everyone uncomfortable. Rogers thinks Stark’s too quick to push out flashy tech that hasn’t been properly vetted, and Stark thinks Rogers is a dinosaur.” She shrugged, sipping her drink. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, they push each other to be better, and they’re friends. But they do fight constantly. And it’s been bad the last couple of months.”

Oh. Bucky hadn’t known that.

“See?” Brock smirked. “Motive. Steve Rogers sold the company out to secure himself a gig at XanCorp - I heard Pierce was hiring.”

“Not possible,” Bucky replied. “Even if Steve wanted to leave, he’s ethical. He’s not gonna do something like that.”

“How would you know?” Brock shot back. Which was a reasonable response, considering Bucky wasn’t supposed to know Steve Rogers at all.

“He just...seems like an ethical guy,” he muttered into his beer.

“Regardless,” Kamala sighed. “Everyone in finance is freaking out. I heard there’s a cash flow problem, and they almost didn’t make payroll at the end of the month.”

“I heard that, too,” Bobbi nodded.

Bucky didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

* * *

It was Monday before he heard anything from Steve. He was working late, again, when his phone pinged with a text.

 

_No excuses, I’ve been out of touch too long. Forgive me?_

 

Bucky hesitated before responding, wanting to be honest but also knowing that Steve was going through a lot of things he couldn’t be privy to. There was also the lingering Brock Rumlow issue in his head, though he was trying hard to push that down.

 

_Nothing to forgive. Miss you, though._

 

It was ten minutes before he got a reply, during which time he finished up the press release he’d been working on, and returned a few emails to reporters that Maria had passed off to him. Right then, the extra money was the only thing he liked about his new job.

 

_Come over? I can send the car._

 

That made Bucky smile, biting his lip as he formulated his response

 

_No need...still at work. 20 mins._

 

Steve didn’t send another reply, which Bucky took to mean he was fine to go over. He finished up a few last minute things before gathering his stuff, tossing his messenger bag over his shoulder and heading out. He decided to walk - it was a nice night, albeit a little cold. By the time he got to Steve’s place he was wishing he’d worn a warmer jacket, though. Tim let him up, and he smiled when he saw Steve in the foyer.

“Hi,” he said, his teeth chattering a little.

“Hey,” Steve replied. He looked frazzled, his hair messy and his beard unkempt. The bags under his eyes were distressing, like maybe he hadn’t slept since everything went down. It wasn’t the look of a man who was sabotaging his company, at any rate, so Rumlow could fuck right off. “You’re freezing, Buck, did you walk?”

“Uh huh.” He nodded, glad for Steve’s warmth as he was wrapped up in his arms.

“You’ll get sick again,” Steve murmured, kissing his forehead before pulling back. “I gotta go hop on a conference call - you want to make yourself some food and hang out?”

Bucky tried not to look disappointed. He’d assumed Steve inviting him over meant that Steve, well, wanted him there. To be together. Not to play with Steve’s expensive toys while the man worked. Still, maybe it was just the one call. “Sure.”

He was left to his own devices after that, Steve disappearing into his office and Bucky making himself a sandwich in the kitchen. An hour later, he’d watched two episodes of Futurama and he was bored, wondering just how much longer Steve was going to be on the phone. Maybe, Bucky reasoned, he would want some entertainment. After all, he’d been _very_ entertained by Bucky during his conference call at the office.

When he pushed open the door to Steve’s office, though, his boyfriend wasn’t on the phone. Instead, Steve was staring at his monitor, manipulating a 3D model of something on the screen. He looked up when Bucky entered, frowning and reaching a hand out to turn the monitor off. Ouch. It was obviously something Bucky wasn’t supposed to be seeing, but he’d thought Steve trusted him a little more than that.

“What, Buck?” he asked.

“I...thought you were gonna be on a call,” Bucky replied, leaning against the doorframe. “That doesn’t look like a call.”

Steve’s mouth set in a thin line. “It was a call. Which resulted in more work. Which I’m now doing.”

“Well…” Bucky tried to go for flirty. “I could help you…”

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Can you not just entertain yourself for a couple hours?”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. I can do that at home. Where I’d be right now. Except you _invited me over_. I assumed to, like, hang out with me, but I guess not.”

Steve shrugged in that way he had when he was about to be a real asshole. “You can’t find ways to keep yourself busy, that’s not my fault.”

For all that Steve was an excellent guy, he was a real prick when he wanted to be, keeping his mean streak hidden until the right button was pushed.

Bucky huffed. “Dick. I’m busy too, you know. This leak shit didn’t just affect you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Bucky, really. Are you having to stay late to write some extra Tweets? That must be tough for you.”

There it was. There was the lovable jerk, who wasn’t actually very lovable and was all god damn jerk. “Sorry we’re not all so fucking _important_ , Steve. You know everyone’s saying you did this. You leaked it to fuck over StarkTech.”

(Okay, that wasn’t exactly true. Brock Rumlow was the only one who said that. But still, Bucky was pissed, and he maybe he wanted to go for the low blow.)

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah,” Bucky replied. “Everyone says you leaked all this shit so you could get a job with Alexander Pierce. And I didn’t believe them. But now, I don’t know. Kinda sounds like something you’d do, considering how selfish you are.”

Steve stood up, his eyes narrowing. “I’m sorry, Bucky, who’s selfish? I can’t drop everything and play with you, so you think I _sold out the company_?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Bucky shrugged. It wasn’t his best defense, he was aware of that fact. “Dunno. Maybe.”

“You’re a child,” Steve snapped.

Bucky flinched. He’d been prepared for Steve to say a lot of things, but not that. The problem was, Steve thinking so little of him was what scared him the most - the idea that Steve would get tired of him. That he’d never really let Bucky in. That Steve meant more to Bucky than Bucky did to Steve. All of that was wrapped up in those three little words. They hurt like hell.

“You’re a shitty boyfriend,” he retorted, lower lip shaking (because he was _not going to cry_ ). He didn’t want to see Steve’s face anymore, turning on his heel to walk out.

His bag was in Steve’s room, of course, since he usually left it there when he came over (he’d even started carrying a change of clothes inside). By the time he reached the bedroom he really was crying, torn between wanting to get the fuck out of Steve’s stupid house, and not wanting the doorman to see him so upset.

The very reasonable compromise he came to was sitting on the edge of the bed and hiding his face in his hands, feeling very stupid and young as he tried to calm down. He was upset enough that he didn’t hear Steve come in, and he jumped when his boyfriend spoke.

“Bucky…”

“Shit,” he sniffed, practically leaping out of his skin. “Don’t worry, I’m going.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Steve said quietly, hesitantly. “Not while you’re upset.”

That was ridiculous, considering Steve was the one who had upset him. “Why? You want to say more mean crap about how pointless my job is, and how I’m too young to know anything, and how you think I only come over here to get laid?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I think that’s a _little_ bit of an overstatement…”

“It’s _exactly_ what you said!” He caught himself getting upset again, tempering his anger as he shook his head and rubbed a hand across his eyes. “No, fuck off. I’m not getting into another fight with you. I’m going home.”

Steve sighed, bringing his hand up to the back of his neck. “Shit, Bucky, I’m doing this wrong. I’m so tired and I’m taking it out on you. I’m sorry. I really don’t want you to go. I mean it.”

He hesitated, meeting Steve’s eyes warily, chewing on his bottom lip. The thing of it was, though, it was the second time that Steve had taken his bad day at work out on Bucky. Because it was easier to punch down, he supposed. Steve did look sad, though, and apologetic. So maybe it wasn’t the time to bring it up. Shrugging, Bucky swiped a hand across his eyes again and picked at the soft material of the bedspread. “Whatever. I don’t really think you’re selling out the company.”

Huffing a sad laugh, Steve moved further into the room. “I’m not, for what it’s worth. It’s just a shitshow right now, Buck. It’s worse than any of us have seen and…” He shook his head, pushing a hand through his hair. “I can’t put that on you. It’s not right.”

Bucky was glad he’d admitted it, and he thought about Steve’s statement for a moment. “You could, though,” he said quietly. “Not in this like...I’m gonna be mean to Bucky way that you keep doing. But you can talk to me about this stuff if you want?”

Steve’s shoulders slumped. He crossed the room and sat on the bed next to Bucky, his weight heavy as he reached over to entwine their hands. “I’d rather keep making you happy, Buck,” he shrugged. “This is my mess to handle.”

“It doesn’t make me happy to see you so upset,” Bucky pointed out. “And also...I think that’s crap. Act like I’m your boyfriend, and you’re having a bad time at work, and maybe you just want to tell me about it. And then I can tell you about how I’m having a bad time at work, too. That’s normal, right?”

Damn it, he was getting teary again.

“Hey…” Steve said. “It’s okay.” Then his arms were around Bucky, and he was pulling him into a hug, which was just the best thing ever. (Even if it wasn’t actually talking about the issue at hand.) Bucky sighed, relaxing into the embrace. “Wanting to talk...that’s normal,” Steve offered eventually.

Bucky kept his mouth shut, wanting to see if he would continue.

“But I keep thinking that if I can protect you from the hard stuff, I can keep you happy. Which is pretty rich, considering I made you cry, huh?”

“Yes,” Bucky agreed. “I don’t know why you think I need so much protecting. I don’t...I hated that you called me a child. I know it’s...like, we play games and shit, but I’m...I can take care of myself. I can handle the important stuff, okay?”

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but Steve let out a shaky sigh of his own before kissing the top of Bucky’s head. “I know you can,” he murmured in that voice that sent shivers down Bucky’s spine. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’ll try and be better about it, alright?”

Bucky nodded. He didn’t know if Steve would be able to follow through, but the fact he’d acknowledged being withholding was a problem, well, that was something.

“And I’m sorry I said that stuff about your job,” Steve continued after a moment. “I’m proud of you. You work really hard, and you’re good at what you do.”

“I am,” he said softly. Even if he wasn’t loving work lately, he was still very good at it. He played with Steve’s fingers for a minute, wanting to broach the final uncomfortable topic, and getting up the gumption to do it after a couple of deep breaths. “What about the sex stuff?”

“The sex stuff?” Steve replied, brushing his fingers through Bucky’s hair.

“You said I was mad because you didn’t have time to play with me,” he shrugged, speaking quickly to get it all out. “But that’s not why I come over here. I want to hang out with you because I like you. I don’t care if we’re fucking around or not. I just want to spend time with you.”

“I know that,” Steve said immediately - not defensively, but like he needed Bucky to hear him. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise, Bucky, I’m sorry.”

“Uh, yes you did,” he replied with a smirk. “Because you know how to be a real fucker when you want to be.”

Steve laughed, and Bucky couldn’t tell from his position, but he would bet a million dollars that Steve had rolled his eyes, too. “That’s fair,” he agreed.

It was fair, Bucky knew. Steve could cut to the quick and hurt him more than anyone else in his life, except maybe Natasha or Becca. And that ability had been built up after just half a year of being together. He couldn’t imagine the ammunition Steve might accumulate after a year, or five, or ten. Then again, he’d have his own set of grenades to launch by then. Maybe that was all love was: increasing stockpiles of nasty things to throw at each other during fights. That was a depressing thought, so he pushed it down, content to let that evening’s fight be over and not worry too much about the next one.

They were quiet for a while longer, Steve stroking his hair or kissing his forehead until Bucky was pliant and happy enough. The mood in the room shifted a little, though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly when. Steve eventually pulled back to look down at him, his tired eyes holding a question. Bucky had the power to initiate, to say yes or no. Having that power gave him a thrill and he briefly considered asking Steve if they could just go to sleep. But the truth was that the fight had gotten him a little worked up, and he knew exactly what would help them both in that moment.

So he bit his lip, meeting Steve’s gaze with his own, trying to look as pitiful as possible. “Daddy…”

Said eyes darkened just slightly, Steve slipping into his role easily enough. “Mmmhmm?”

Bucky shrugged, coy, looking up from under his lashes. “You made me cry.”

Steve sucked in a sharp breath, which Bucky felt rather proud of.  “That’s because you’re so pretty when you cry, baby,” he murmured, taking a moment to collect himself before bringing his hand up to tangle in Bucky’s hair again.

The words sent a jolt of arousal straight to Bucky’s cock, where it twitched against his leg. “Gonna make me cry again?” he asked, chewing on his lip.

“Hope so,” Steve said, pulling him in by the hair and pressing his lips against Bucky’s in a bruising kiss.

Steve wasn’t gentle, standing him up and undressing him efficiently before settling him back on the bed, this time on his stomach. Bucky pillowed his cheek on his folded hands, trying to look back over his shoulder to see what Steve was doing.

That earned him a real spank on the ass - several of them, in fact. “No peeking,” Steve replied, Bucky whining in protest. “I told you I’d make you cry, so don’t test me.”

Bucky really kind of wanted to, but he kept his gaze resolutely forward as Steve got up from the bed to fetch a few things. He settled back on the bed with Bucky after a moment, and the next thing Bucky knew, there was a blindfold going across his eyes. “There,” Steve murmured. “Now you won’t be so tempted.”

Bucky’s senses were heightened with the blindfold on and he tried to discern what Steve was doing. A sharp tap on his hip came before Steve spoke again. “Lift up a little,” he instructed, and when Bucky did as he was told, Steve slid one of the pillows from the head of the bed under his hips. Once Bucky was settled, Steve straddled his calves. Bucky squirmed, the flannel of the pants Steve was wearing nice and warm against his bare skin.

“Such a good boy,” Steve murmured, running one finger down Bucky’s spine from his neck to his ass. He shivered, feeling Steve’s finger circling the tight ring of muscle at his entrance, wondering if he was planning on breaching him dry.

The first touch of Steve’s tongue between his cheeks put that notion to rest, with Bucky yelping in surprise and jerking his hips reflexively against the pillow. Steve responded with more hard slaps to his rear end. “Hold still, baby. How’m I gonna get you ready if you’re moving all over the place?”

“Sorry, Daddy,” he managed, his breath already coming in fits and starts. “Sorry, sorry.”

Rimming was not an _entirely_ new experience for Bucky. He had been on the giving end before. The receiving, however, was most certainly a novelty. He wasn’t sure if he liked it, at least at first. However, as Steve moved back down, circling his entrance with a few teasing licks before pushing his tongue inside, Bucky decided he could get used to it.

(And who was he kidding about not liking it, actually, because oh fuck oh _jesus fuck_ it felt incredible and also kind of wrong but definitely kind of right and how exactly was he supposed to _not move_?)

Steve continued to lavish attention on him, working him open with his tongue and his fingers, but without the assistance of any other lubrication. It hurt sometimes, causing Bucky to squirm and kick. Any time he shifted more than an inch or two, though, Steve’s hand was there to correct him. Firmly. They weren’t the same light, teasing spanks Steve had given him on other occasions. These were real. They hurt, and he was honestly surprised by how much he liked it. The intensity of the sensations was exacerbated by the heightened emotion of the evening, and the dam eventually broke, a fresh round of tears wrung out of him the sixth (or maybe seventh?) time Steve spanked him soundly. He didn’t care. He could feel the wetness soaking into the blindfold, and knowing Steve had brought him to tears again made him, weirdly, happy. It felt too good to worry about why he liked it so much.

Steve, however, had some concerns, resting a hand on the small of Bucky’s back before leaning up to kiss his shoulder. “Hey, baby,” he murmured. “You okay?”

Bucky nodded, sniffling in a very undignified way as he turned his head in Steve’s direction. “Hurts. Don’t stop.”

He couldn’t see Steve’s face, but he could hear the smile in his voice. “If you say so, sweetheart. You want me to stop, you say red, okay?”

Ugh, Steve Rogers and his damn safewords.

(Still, when his hands found Bucky’s reddened cheeks and squeezed them to the point of making Bucky kick his feet, well, he was kind of glad he had the option. Just in case.)

Steve put his tongue back to work, until Bucky was falling apart beneath him, whimpering please, please, please as Steve worked two fingers inside of him, alongside his tongue, stretching Bucky to the point of being uncomfortable.

Despite that discomfort, Bucky whined when he heard the unmistakable sound of the lube bottle being flicked open. That earned him another three swats, and Steve’s laughter. “What, you don’t want me to prep you properly?”

“Takes too _long_ , Daddy,” he protested.

Steve was quiet for a moment, rubbing Bucky’s lower back gently. “Huh. If I just slick myself up first, you think you can handle that?”

He wasn’t sure, but he could god damn try. “Yes.”

Steve didn’t hesitate, taking Bucky at his word. He got rid of his pajamas and, Bucky assumed, lubed himself up before positioning himself atop Bucky and starting to work his way in at an angle that was new and, Bucky discovered, a little tougher than some others. As it turned out, a rim job wasn’t _quite_ enough to make it an entirely painless experience. Bucky squirmed to generate some friction for his neglected cock against the pillow, wanting it to feel good again, whining, a little mortified at the sounds Steve was getting out of him.

“Yeah, I thought so. But you asked for it, pretty, so we’re gonna have to figure it out,” Steve murmured, holding Bucky’s hips steady. “I can wait. You tell me when you want me to move.”

So, Bucky did, letting his body adjust to the intrusion before he gave Steve the green light. When Steve was seated inside of him, the heavy weight of his body pinning him to the bed, Bucky let out a contented sigh. “Toldja I could do it, Stevie.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Bucky,” Steve managed, his voice a strangled gasp. “You’re so tight. I gotta move...if you’re ready?”

The fact that he could bring that kind of desperation out in Steve never ceased to amaze him, and Bucky smiled a little smile to himself before nodding. “Please?”

Steve was never one to deny Bucky what he wanted, working his hips to set a steady rhythm. Bucky’s cock, trapped between his body and the pillow, wasn’t getting everything it needed, but being fucked into the bed by his boyfriend, well, it was getting him there. It didn’t hurt that every time Steve thrust forward it reminded him how sensitive his ass was from the spanking. Or that Steve was hitting the sweet spot inside of him with nearly every stroke.

In the end, Steve came first, spilling into Bucky with a grunt and collapsing on top of him. He was considerate, though, and after a moment’s recovery time he shifted their bodies so he could pull the pillow away, then maneuver his arm underneath Bucky and wrap one big hand around his dick. It didn’t take long, though Bucky did feel a bit bad about coming all over Steve’s comforter. Again.

They ended up kicking said comforter off the bed after Bucky pulled down his blindfold, Steve grabbing an extra blanket from the closet instead. “I gotta start putting a towel down for you,” Steve teased, using the blanket to wrap them both up as they cuddled.

“That’s so gross.”

“How is that gross?” he laughed. “It’s practical. I’m tired of having to clean your come off my stuff.”

Bucky thought about that. “I mean, _you_ aren’t cleaning it. You’re paying someone else to clean it.” Steve did have a laundry service, after all, though Bucky was pretty sure he always presoaked any stains out of both embarrassment and a guilty conscience. “Now, whether or not you pay your staff enough to deal with my come is another question…”

Steve shut him up by tickling him, then pulling him against his chest and sighing. Bucky was content to stay there for a while, though he knew they’d want to shower eventually, and he very much wanted to examine how red his ass was in the bathroom mirror. He was thinking about whether an ass-selfie was an appropriate thing to have on his phone, in fact, when Steve spoke up again.

“I’m gonna get you an elevator key,” he said, which surprised the hell out of Bucky.

“Huh?”

“What you said before, about feeling...I don’t know, the way you said it made me think that you see yourself as a guest here. And I don’t want you to feel that way. You should be able to come over here and hang out. Whenever you want. I don’t mind.”

It wasn’t quite asking him to move in (and Bucky was one hundred million percent sure they were _not_ ready for that), but it was something significant. Significant enough that he felt himself getting bashful, hiding his face against Steve’s broad chest and headbutting him instead of using his words. “Okay,” he mumbled finally. “Thanks.”

Steve laughed, pressing a kiss into his hair. “You’re welcome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: we're back to Christmas again, can you believe it? Hopefully, Bucky will puke less this time around. Have I mentioned how much I'm enjoying all the responses I'm getting to this story? I had so much fun reading all the theories about where things are going on the last chapter! 
> 
> I assume everyone knows the song from this chapter title, but also I am old, so: [Sabotage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5rRZdiu1UE). 
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com), ask me things, or just marvel at the sheer amount of Stucky/Steggy/World War Threesome crap I can post.


	21. Fates Allow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Presents, Judy Garland, and copious amounts of cookies. Bucky can't think of a better way to spend Christmas, really.

Work continued to be stressful, to the point that Bucky started thinking about what he would do if StarkTech wasn’t available anymore. Not that he thought they were going to lose their jobs, but hating work and knowing there were financial issues within the company made him much more inclined to look into what else was out there. On a whim, he signed up to take the GRE, studying with Natasha at night. Grad school seemed like something he might want to do. Maybe. He didn’t tell Steve, though, because he wasn’t sure his scores would be good enough, and there was a part of him that was still smarting from their fight. A petty part of him that wanted to have his own secrets. Steve didn’t need to know _everything_ about him.

Later on in December was better. Nothing was _good_ , exactly, but Steve wasn’t quite so busy and the lull of the holiday season had dulled the never-ending stream of work. Bucky saw his boyfriend more frequently and Steve was back to doting on him, which was appreciated.

Still, it sucked that StarkTech canceled the holiday party. Bucky understood why - it was a bad look to have some extravagant affair when there were rumors of layoffs floating around. But he’d been looking forward to seeing Steve in a tux again.

The mood around the office was generally morose, even as they headed into the break. Rhodey, kindly, took his staff out to dinner and gave them gift cards, since there most definitely was not going to be any sort of holiday bonus that year. Bucky was certain Rhodey had paid for them all out of his own pocket, in fact, and while those pockets were deep it was still a very nice gesture.

Bucky, Wanda, and Peter went out for drinks before the break, too, just the three of them. Peter seemed especially down, as he felt his job was the most expendable, and there weren’t a lot of places hiring full-time staff photographers anymore. The thing was, he explained, he needed the health insurance for Wade. The system sucked.

Bucky and Wanda didn’t have much to offer him, other than reassurances that no matter what, he’d land on his feet. Bucky felt especially guilty - Steve didn’t tell him much about what was going on, but he knew it was bad and that Alexander Pierce seemed to have a bottomless well of information about the inner workings of StarkTech.

Truthfully, everything just felt unsettled, in flux, as though they were all waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop. It wasn’t fun, and Bucky hated walking around with that twisty ball of anxiety in his stomach all the time. Especially during what was usually his favorite time of the year.

Christmas itself was spent at his parents’ house, Natasha tagging along as it had been too expensive for her to fly home. Bucky didn’t mind the extra company, and Tasha was great with teenage girls. It made decorating cookies with his sisters much easier when she was there to mediate fights. (Granted, she was the one who _started_ the worst fight by flinging red frosting at him, but it seemed rude to point that out when she was also so good at helping clean up.)

On Christmas Eve, after everyone else had gone to bed, she and Bucky were curled up together on the couch in the den watching _Meet Me In St. Louis,_ Natasha’s head in Bucky’s lap.

“I wish Steve was here,” he said absently, fingers playing with her hair.

“Mmm?” she replied, shifting her weight so she could look up at him. (And really, they sometimes watched _Meet Me In St. Louis_ in June, because Judy Garland, so it wasn’t like they needed to pay attention.)

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I dunno. I wish he could be.”

She blinked a couple of times, pulling her blanket up closer to her chin. “Why can’t he?”

The question brought Bucky up short, and he frowned. “Because...we’re not...it’s still a secret. It’s complicated.”

Natasha shrugged, never one to mince words. “You’re going to have to figure it out eventually, you know. Scenario one, you’ll have to end it because you don’t want to keep it a secret, or scenario two, the secret will come out and you’ll either end it or figure out how to live with it.”

Bucky’s insides seized up at how easily she laid it out, frowning as he pushed a hand through his hair and grunted his sort-of agreement.

“Besides,” Natasha continued, “it’s only the job thing, right? If they really do lay everybody off, or you go to school, it won’t matter. So you can bring him to Christmas next year.”

She was blunt, but she wasn’t wrong. If Bucky didn’t work at StarkTech anymore, things could change. That was something to consider. Bucky had gotten so used to seeing Steve behind closed doors that the idea of bringing their relationship into the light caught him off guard.

“I guess so,” he said slowly. “Maybe he still wouldn’t want to be like...super out, though? Because of the age difference?”

Another pause, Natasha considering before speaking as diplomatically as she could. “So the thing is...if he doesn’t want to be with you - _really_ be with you - eventually? You need to think about that. And what that means. And if that’s really how you want to...live your life?”

Bucky was quiet, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “I mean, probably he does? I don’t know. We don’t really talk about that stuff.”

“Maybe you should.”

Maybe. But probably not.

* * *

Bucky was invited to Steve’s for Boxing Day, which was a day he had heard of before but Steve apparently took very seriously thanks to his time spent with Peggy. Boxing Day was a much bigger thing in England, Steve assured him. Whatever it was, it meant spending time with Steve over the holidays, so God save the queen, pip pip cheerio. And so on.

He let himself up, calling out a hello as he unwrapped his scarf and took off his coat to hang them in the hall closet. He heard a greeting from the direction of the living room and followed the sound of Steve’s voice to find his boyfriend on his knees, cursing to himself as he worked on getting a fire going.

The room itself was decorated with a big, traditional tree, though most of the presents that had been under it the last time Bucky had been over were gone. Steve had spent Christmas with Sam Wilson, his best friend, Sam’s family, and Peggy. Bucky had never met Sam in person, but he felt like he knew him a little, just from the way Steve talked about him. He was one of the few people Steve actually _would_ talk about. Plus, as the Chief of Operations at StarkTech, Sam was a well-known figure around the office. Sam was married to Sharon Carter, Peggy’s cousin, and they had two kids who Steve considered his niece and nephew. He’d had them all over for Christmas Eve and Christmas day, alongside Peggy’s brother Michael, who had come over from England for the holiday.

(Bucky thought it was nice that Steve had carved out that little family for himself. Even if secretly he wanted to be a part of it, too, because it was a side of Steve he didn’t know or see. But he wasn’t going to dwell on it because it was Christmas, and Christmas was when you were _happy_.)

“Hi,” he greeted, moving over to press a kiss to the top of Steve’s head. “It’s snowing out there.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve smiled, finally getting the logs going, then sitting back with a contented sigh, leaning against Bucky’s legs for a moment. (And really, it was a gas fireplace, _how hard could it be?_ ) “I can tell, your jeans feel damp.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I was gonna go change.”

“Sure,” Steve agreed, before thinking better of it. “Oh wait, hang on a second.” He pushed himself up off the floor and went to grab one of the boxes still left under the tree. “First present.”

Bucky grinned, taking the box from him and ripping off the paper. Inside was a very nice pair of red plaid pajama pants, a complement to the blue ones Steve was currently sporting. There was also a long-sleeved grey thermal top, which Bucky really appreciated because the thought of a _matching_ plaid shirt was Too Much, even for him. There was also, he discovered, a pair of fancy slippers - suede, with a fuzzy lining. Probably from L.L. Bean because of Steve and his stupid lumberjack fetish. “Aw…” he grinned. “Stevie.”

“Your current pajamas have holes in them. This was an act of mercy,” Steve replied. “Go get changed.”

Bucky did, returning to find Steve on the couch with three more boxes, all of them evidently for him. Steve was ridiculous. Bucky loved him. (And _nope nope nope_ he was not saying that out loud.)

“I only got you two presents…” Bucky sighed, presenting Steve with a couple boxes of his own.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Steve protested, pulling Bucky down to the couch. It was nice and warm, all wrapped up in his new PJs, the fire crackling and Christmas carols playing over the sound system. It was disgustingly domestic, and it felt completely and totally right. When had he gotten so gross and normal?

“Yes I did,” he replied, kissing Steve’s bearded cheek. “Because you’re my boyfriend and it’s Christmas.” Pulling back, he reached for one of his gifts. He opened it to find a brand new e-reader, which was _awesome_ because he’d been without one for over a year since he’d stepped on his old one while he was drunk. He’d told Steve the story because it was funny, not because he expected a replacement. As a voracious reader, though, he’d been brokenhearted, as e-readers were perfect for subway commutes.

“There’s a gift card, too,” Steve said before Bucky could respond, looking pleased with himself. “Build up your library again.”

“Thank you, this is awesome!” Maybe he should have been wary of Steve’s motivations behind buying him such expensive things, but it made Steve happy to do it, so Bucky wasn’t that concerned. The way he saw it, Steve had a hard time expressing emotions in traditional ways, so he used his money instead. Any therapist worth their salt would have a field day with him, but Bucky wasn’t his therapist. He was his boyfriend, and he loved how happy it made Steve when Bucky got excited over some new toy.

“You’re welcome,” Steve replied. “Can I open one of mine?”

“Sure,” Bucky shrugged. “That one first.” He tapped the slightly larger box, inside of which was a vintage baking cookbook he’d found while perusing the flea market with Natasha. Steve, because he was weird, had a collection of old cookbooks, and he sometimes liked to spring strange baked goods on Bucky from odd recipes he’d found. More often than not they were great, but there had been one memorable Jell-O related disaster that neither of them had been able to stomach more than three bites of.

“Hey, this is great!” He exclaimed, with such dorky enthusiasm that Bucky couldn’t help laughing. “Thanks, Buck. I’ll find a recipe and bake something for us tomorrow.”

“That’s really why I bought it,” Bucky smirked, before reaching for the biggest of his gifts, since he was still secretly a five-year-old, and assumed the bigger the box, the better the toy inside. The box, as it turned out, contained a PS4 Pro. It was _definitely_ the best toy. Ever. He’d been secretly coveting it for months, and it was something he could hold over Clint Barton’s head until the end of time.

“Holy shit, Steve!” he exclaimed. “Jesus, this is...holy _shit_! How did you know?!”

If Steve had looked pleased with himself about the e-reader, he was practically thrumming off the couch with pleasure from Bucky’s reaction to the console. “I asked Natasha,” he admitted sheepishly. “She said it’d make you happy and piss off a mutual friend, so…” He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. “That one has a gift card, too. I didn’t know what games were good so...I figured I’d let you buy ‘em.”

“Stevie…” he managed, throwing his arms around his boyfriend’s neck. It wasn’t the gift, exactly, though the gift was nice (holy shit, was it nice). It was the fact that Steve had taken the initiative to find out exactly what he’d want, and why. It meant a lot, was all.

“You’re welcome, baby,” Steve murmured, kissing Bucky’s temple. His arms went around Bucky’s torso after a moment, squeezing him tightly and rubbing his back before releasing him and reaching for the second wrapped box Bucky had given him.

Bucky was pretty proud of the second present, and he grinned to himself as Steve opened up the small package. Inside was the cheesiest “#1 Dad” mug Bucky had been able to track down at a Times Square tourist trap, and he watched with delight as Steve did a double take.

“ _Bucky._ ”

“What! It’s true!”

“You are…” he smirked, pulling Bucky closer and mussing his hair affectionately. “A punk.”

“I’m your punk.”

“You are my punk. Thank you. I love it.”

“You’re welcome. Can I have my last present now?”

Steve nodded, though he hesitated as he put down his mug before handing the last package over. “This one comes with some conditions, okay?”

“Intriguing,” Bucky murmured, pulling the paper away to reveal a small, unmarked cardboard box. Opening that up, he saw a StarkPhone sitting atop some bubble wrap. He raised an eyebrow, looking at Steve curiously. “You got me a phone?”

“Sort of,” Steve said, his mouth twisting into a frown before he explained. “It’s a prototype of the next generation we’re working on. I’m gonna let you test it out for me, okay?”

Okay. That was cool. That was exceedingly cool, and Bucky couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “Really?!”

“Yup.” Steve smiled a little at Bucky’s enthusiasm. “That’s where the conditions come in, though. It’s not really your phone - you can’t import your contacts, or attach it to your StarkID. It’s attached to a generic company account for service. It’s just to play with and test out for a couple months.” He shrugged, pushing a hand through his hair. “You’re our target demographic so...I’d like to get your feedback on it, especially the fitness apps, see what tweaks might need to be made.”

Bucky snorted in amusement as he pulled the phone out of the packaging. “So...you’re giving me a focus group for Christmas?”

Now Steve really did look concerned. “I know it’s not the best gift. You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to...I just thought...”

Shrugging, Bucky turned the phone on and smiled when the screen lit up with the familiar logo. “No, it’s cool. Nat’ll be jealous.”

Steve hummed, his hand moving over to rest on Bucky’s knee. “It’s proprietary technology, though, okay? You gotta be careful with it.”

“I will,” Bucky agreed, already a little distracted by the device. “Oh hey, the interface is different. Neat.”

Leaving him to his toys, Steve got up to clear the wrapping paper and boxes away. The rest of the day was spent watching movies, making out, eating delicious food and discussing their various family Christmas shenanigans from the two days prior.

It was only when they were in bed, Bucky pulled back against Steve’s chest, Steve’s broad hand resting on his stomach, that Bucky said something spurred by the conversation he’d had with Natasha the day before. Maybe it was cowardly to do it when Steve was drifting off to sleep, but Bucky wasn’t feeling very brave.

“I want to spend next Christmas with you, Stevie,” he said softly. “Really with you. Together.”

Steve, half-asleep, made a rumbling sound before pressing a lazy kiss to the top of Bucky’s head. “Yeah, sweetheart,” he murmured. “We will.”

Bucky wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to hold him to that promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slower chapter before the ramp up to the end. And, of course, [the saddest Christmas song ever](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH9RyySpkU8&feature=youtu.be). Screw the upbeat version that's been peddled for years, give me Judy and sadness.
> 
> Comments and kudos give me life! 
> 
> Up next: well, plot. We only have three real chapters left, after all.
> 
> Scheduling note - I'm traveling internationally for the next couple of weeks, but I should have internet access the whole time and be able to post 1-2 times a week depending. If I can't, please don't despair, the story will be finished soon and I've already started working on one-shots in this universe. 
> 
> Tumblr? Tumblr: [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com).


	22. Get Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky can't keep track of property. It's a bit of a mess.

Bucky didn’t realize he had lost the phone until it had been gone for nearly twelve hours.

He’d been testing it throughout January, mostly when he ran, because the fitness tracking apps were unreal. He didn’t use it as much as his regular phone because, well, it didn’t have his personal stuff on it. But it was easy to use the trackers without the rest of it, so he tended to bring it to the employee gym after work, too. That was where he lost it, best he could figure because he remembered having it in the locker room and it was missing from his gym bag when he went to grab it before heading out on his run the next day. He had no way of knowing if he’d lost it at the gym, or if it had fallen out on the subway home, or been stolen, or a million other things that could have happened. So, he panicked. And there was only one person he wanted to talk to when he was panicking (plus, he knew he had to own up to losing it).

 

_SOS can u call me?_

 

Because yeah, Steve would be mad, but he could also help Bucky think through it. Things had been pretty good since Christmas - they’d been talking more, hadn’t had any fights, and the sex was still as incredible as it had ever been. Everything felt normal, so of course, he’d had to fuck it up by losing an expensive piece of proprietary technology Steve had told him to be careful with.

He wasn’t expecting an immediate return call, considering it was six in the morning. But then again, Steve was Steve, so he wasn’t all that surprised when his phone started ringing a few seconds later.

“Hi,” he answered. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

“I’ve been awake for a while. What’s up, you okay?” Steve sounded concerned, which was nice. And also sad, considering Bucky was about to ruin his morning.

“So um...I’m okay but...I kind of um...lost the phone?”

Silence, long enough that Bucky wondered whether or not the connection had dropped out.

“...what?” Oh, shit. Steve sounded pissed.

“Yeah, so I was hoping maybe you had a GPS tracker on it or…”

“Bucky, are you fucking kidding me?”

Wow. Steve was really mad. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“Um...no?”

“Shit. Bucky, this is bad. Do you have any idea how bad this is?” Now he was yelling, or at least his voice was raised beyond what Bucky felt was strictly necessary. “I’m going to have to report this.”

“What?” Bucky yelped. “Why? Don’t you guys have other prototypes out there? You can just track it, right? I’ll go wherever and get it back!”

“You have no idea what’s going on,” Steve snapped in response.

“What are you _talking_ about?” he exclaimed.

Steve huffed out a breath and Bucky could almost picture him pinching the bridge of his nose. “I am going to fix this,” he said, his voice taking on that scary, quiet tone it got when he was really pissed off but not sharing why. “You just...go to work, Bucky.”

“Steve…” he managed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

There was another long silence on the end of the line, and when Steve spoke again he sounded tired. “I know. But not everyone will. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“...okay.”

They hung up, a sick feeling in the pit of Bucky’s stomach. What the fuck did _everyone_ mean? He’d imagined Steve would be annoyed, but instead, he’d been angry - freaked out and panicked. Bucky couldn’t figure out why. Sure, it wasn’t great that he’d lost the phone, but XanCorp was already fucking them over left and right, so what was losing one more prototype? Anxious, he showered and dressed, too worried to eat breakfast.

What followed was one of the worst days he’d ever had at work. He couldn’t focus on anything - nervous and jumpy anytime someone walked down the hall to Maria’s office.

It was almost a relief when, at three o’clock, he got an email requesting his presence at a last-minute meeting with Human Resources. That was fine. At least if he was in trouble about the phone, he would get his reprimand and move on.

Bucky was surprised, then, when he walked into a small conference room in the HR suite and found Phil Coulson, director of HR, and Peggy Carter waiting for him, both stony-faced and impassive. There was also a guy standing near the door, and Bucky didn’t know him from Adam but he had the look of ‘security’ about him. Bucky was pretty sure Phil and Peggy weren’t usually brought in for meetings with employees as low on the totem pole as he was.

Shit.

“James,” Phil greeted. “Please have a seat.”

“Um...sure,” Bucky said, feeling very small as he slid into one of the conference room chairs. “Look, I’m really sorry about the phone…” he began, willing himself to keep the shakiness out of his voice.

“This isn’t about the phone,” Peggy replied, her tone calm, eerily reminiscent of Steve’s when he was massively, massively pissed. “Not entirely. We’ve found the phone.”

Oh. That was a relief. “You did?”

“Mmm,” Peggy nodded, her perfectly manicured fingers coming to rest on the table as she folded her hands on the surface. “But I think you already knew that. You see, the tracker on the device shows that it’s current currently within XanCorp’s headquarters.”

What?! That didn’t make any sense. Bucky squinted, confused, looking to Phil, who offered him no comfort, only a hard look.

“We’ve had our suspicions for some time, James,” Peggy continued, reaching into her bag and producing a manila folder, which she lay on the table. She flipped it open, and Bucky looked down to see what seemed to be a printed email, from his account, on top of the pile. She closed the file before he had time to read it, though. “Encrypted emails, downloading of secure design files, the memos you intercepted. You were clever - you had us fooled. But I am exceedingly good at my job.”

He’d never seen someone look so angry while keeping so level-headed. All he could do was splutter a response, his palms sweaty, the back of his neck heating up. Damn it, he knew he was going bright red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“There it is,” she replied coolly, cocking her head to the side. “I suppose that’s the sweet and innocent act that’s had Steve fooled for a year now.”

Bucky sucked in a sharp breath at that revelation, his eyes going wide, heart thumping faster in his chest. She knew? How did she know?

Phil interrupted. “Peggy, we weren’t going to bring that up.”

Peggy murmured an insincere apology to her colleague, her glare still affixed to Bucky. He was trying to process, though it was nearly impossible to sort through the sheer volume of information hitting him all at once. Peggy _knew_ about him and Steve. She thought he had been using Steve to glean information about the company. Apparently, they had something that _proved_ he was leaking said gleaned information to XanCorp. The god damn _phone_ was at XanCorp.

But he _hadn’t_. It wasn’t true. He just had to make them understand, to prove it.

“It’s not true!” He wished it had come out more manfully, with the confidence and assurance of someone who hadn’t done anything wrong. Instead, it was more of a pitiful whine. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“And yet, you did,” Peggy replied icily. “You might as well confess to it, save us all the bother.”

“Peggy,” Phil said again, and Bucky didn’t know if they were doing some sort of good-cop, bad-cop routine, but he hated it. He hated them. “While it’s true we’ve had reason to suspect you, James…” Phil began.

“Oh, come off it, Phil,” Peggy snapped. “We’ve known it was him since December. The only bloody reason we didn’t fire him on the spot was Steve’s…”

Bucky didn’t hear the rest of what she said, the rushing in his ears growing louder. He felt sick. He wanted to scream. Steve knew they suspected him. Steve had _known_. For months. Since before Christmas.

“The phone…” he managed, interrupting whatever Peggy had been saying. “Steve gave me that.”

“Yes,” Peggy agreed. “We believed you would turn the phone over to Alexander Pierce. We were right. I wish I could say I was sorry to be proven correct, but...” she shrugged. Bucky wasn’t sure he’d ever been truly hated before, but the fierce protectiveness radiating from her was staggering. She believed he’d lied to her friend, and she was livid.

That was fine. Bucky could get down with livid because he was feeling it right then. Confused, hurt, and embarrassed, too.

“James,” Phil said, as though he were talking to a small child, which made Bucky hate him more. “We don’t want this...incident coming out in the press. We’re not going to name you, and we’re willing to offer you a month’s pay if you’ll sign a non-disclosure agreement and walk out of here today. Quietly.”

What the fuck. What the _fuck_. They were _firing_ him? For something they thought he did, but he _didn’t do_ and Steve knew? Steve had been lying to him for months, had tricked him? He was definitely, definitely going to be sick.

“But I didn’t…” he tried, feeling tears prick at the corners of his eyes. Fucking shit. He refused to cry in front of them.

“But you did,” Peggy replied crisply, sliding the non-disclosure agreement in front of him. “Sign it and be on your way, James. Save us from having to sue you and drag this whole mess into the public eye.”

Sued. By a multi-billion (trillion?) dollar corporation. For something he hadn’t done. For something they’d blindsided him with. For an agreement they weren’t going to let him read, that they were asking him to _trust them_ to uphold. Fuck them. There was a limit, apparently, to what Bucky would endure. And signing a form stating that he wouldn’t talk about a thing he _hadn’t done_ was a step too far. Pushing back from the table, he stood up, lower lip shaking. “I’m not signing anything,” he said. “I quit.”

“James…” That was Phil. “Be reasonable.”

“ _You_ be reasonable. I didn’t _do_ anything, but if you guys are just going to...to think I did, then fine. I quit. Sue me, I don’t care.” He glared at them, pushing back from the small table. “Besides, what do I need your stupid severance for? I guess I can just walk down the street and start working for Alexander Pierce.”

“I think we both know you already do.”

Peggy Carter just couldn’t let it drop. Bucky hated her the most.

“You’re just jealous,” he spat back, which wasn’t the most mature response he could think of, but it felt good to say. If it hurt her, she didn’t show it, rising from her chair and nodding to the security guard instead.

“James, I’m really not.”

* * *

The assholes hadn’t even let him get his things off his desk. That wasn’t the worst part of his day, of course, but it stuck with him as he rode home on a relatively uncrowded train. Because it was only three-thirty. And he was unemployed.

He was unemployed and unhireable.

He was unemployed, unhireable, and his boyfriend had lied to him.

He was unemployed, unhireable, his boyfriend (ex-boyfriend?) had lied to him, and he had been accused of a crime he hadn’t committed. Maybe Gus knew a good lawyer?

All in all, it was the worst day of Bucky’s life.

Coming up from the subway revealed that he had twelve missed calls from Steve, along with a series of voicemails.

Bucky glowered, deleting every one of them without listening and turning off his phone. Liar.

When he got home, he found Natasha already there, practicing yoga poses in the living room. She took one look at Bucky’s face and knew immediately that something had happened.

“Yasha?” she asked, getting to her feet.

“Fuck, Nat,” he managed, before bursting into tears.

Five minutes later, she had him in her bed, in his pajamas, hiding under the covers as he spilled the whole story. Natasha was an actual angel, Bucky decided.

“So the phone was, what, a test?” she asked, frowning.

“I guess,” he managed, his voice still shaky. “He lied to me. Or lied by omission, I don’t know. But fucking Peggy said they’ve suspected me for _months_. And Steve knew. He set me up.” He shrugged, rubbing a hand across his eyes. “Fuck. I was so stupid, I thought I was in love with him.”

“What a bunch of fuckers,” Natasha replied, succinctly summarizing the situation. “They’re idiots, Bucky. And Steve’s the biggest idiot of them all if he wasn’t honest with you about it.”

“They didn’t even let me defend myself,” he said, voice husky again. “Just...thank you, goodbye, you’re fired. I mean, I know it looks bad but...I didn’t _do_ it.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” she said with a smile. “You can barely run updates on your laptop. I don’t think you’re hacking into corporate systems and selling trade secrets unless you’ve been playing a long con on me for the past few years.”

“Ha ha,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes again. “Shit, Tasha, this is bad.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s not great. And I don’t...I can’t figure out how the stupid phone got exactly where they thought it would go.” Neither could Bucky, come to think of it. “But we’re gonna figure it out, okay? Even if you have to go back to the coffee shop for money.”

“Ugh.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment, though it was Natasha who broke the silence.

“What about Steve?”

“What about him?” Bucky replied, his instinctive reaction to hearing Steve’s name a bad one.

“Are you going to end it?”

“I think he did that pretty effectively when he lied to me and sold me out,” he sighed. “He’s probably been planning it forever. Probably laughing about it now with Peggy fucking Carter. He’s...I kind of hate him, Tasha.”

“Yeah,” she agreed quietly. “I would, too.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were out in the kitchen getting more tea, when a knock came at their front door.

“Bucky?” That was Steve’s voice, muffled in the hallway. It seemed he’d found some schmuck outside to let him in without using the buzzer. Smart. He wouldn’t have made it past the front door otherwise.

“Shit,” Bucky mumbled, glancing at the open door to Natasha’s bedroom. “Tasha, I don’t want to talk to him. Make him go away.”

Natasha looked positively gleeful at the prospect, kissing Bucky’s forehead before sending him into her room. Bucky, because he wanted to hear her kicking Steve’s ass, left the door barely cracked so he could sit against the wall and listen.

“Can I help you?” Natasha asked, having opened the door.

It was harder for Bucky to hear Steve, considering he was still in the hallway, but he could pick up the low rumble of his voice.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Natasha said, although she’d let Steve inside since his voice was much clearer when he responded.

“I need to talk to him.” Steve sounded worried. Probably afraid that Bucky, having not signed the NDA, was going to go to the press and talk about how he’d totally undermined StarkTech, how they weren’t as smart as they thought they were, and how Steve Rogers had been fucking an entry-level employee on the sly for almost a year.

“No,” Natasha replied. “He doesn’t want to see you.”

“Come on, Natasha…”

“You’ve got some nerve acting like we’re friends, Rogers,” she replied, her voice like ice. Peggy Carter might have been scary when she was angry, but Natasha was terrifying. “After what you people did? Fuck off, he doesn’t owe you anything. Neither do I. Why don’t you go figure out who your real leak is and leave my friend alone.”

“That’s not…”

“Oh my God, you’re still here, and you’re still talking! We don’t want you here, Steve. You fucked up. Get out.”

“He’s my god damn boyfriend.”

“Not anymore, he’s not,” she said firmly. Bucky _loved_ Natasha. She wouldn’t break up with Gus for him, but she would sure as shit send Steve Rogers packing.

“What?” Steve sounded panicked now. “I want to talk to him.”

“Sometimes we don’t get what we want,” Natasha replied, her voice dripping with faux-sweetness. “The thing is, Steve-o…” She took a deep breath. “Bucky talks about you like you hung the fucking moon. He talks about how people love you, how everyone thinks you’re the _greatest guy_.” She bit that phrase out with her best dose of bitter sarcasm. It was wonderful.

Her voice strengthened before she spoke again, and while she wasn’t yelling, she was furious. “So you get people like Peggy Carter to do your dirty work for you, then you waltz in with apologies because gosh, you’re Steve Rogers. You’re the _best_! But here’s the thing: I’m here because I think _Bucky Barnes_ is the best. He might not have a staff of people waiting to do his bidding but he has _me_ , and I will fucking end you if you take one more step towards that room.”

Bucky’s eyes went wide, and he clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from gasping. He’d never heard Natasha do anything like that before, and even if it was the worst day of his life, hearing her defend him so passionately was kind of the greatest thing ever.

Steve didn’t say anything, and Bucky briefly wondered if she’d followed through on murdering him. “Fine,” he snapped eventually, sounding angry and resigned. “Will you...can you tell him I love him and I’m ready to talk when he gets over...whatever this is?”

“Nope,” she replied. “You don’t get to fuck with his head anymore. Bye, Steve.”

Bucky started crying again once Steve was out the door, wrapping his arms around his legs and hiding his face against his knees. He felt like a stupid little kid. He should have been better than that, but the tears just kept coming. Natasha came back into her room and sighed when she saw him, crouching down to get on his level.

“How much of that did you hear?” she asked.

“Everything.”

Her arms went around him, letting him cry it out. He was fairly sure he wasn’t going to have any tears left by the time the day was through.

“He said he loves me,” he managed eventually.

“Yeah,” she replied with a nod. “He did.”

“You threatened to kill him.”

“Yeah,” she smirked. “I did.”

“Thanks,” he said softly, pushing a hand through his hair as he sat back against the wall. “I love you. Fuck Steve Rogers.”

“Fuck Steve Rogers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um...sorry. (Not that sorry!) Kudos to those of you who picked up on the fact that the phone was Not So Good. 
> 
> Up next: it gets better! Kind of!
> 
> Chapter title from the lovely Fiona Apple's [Get Gone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU8Qjr6a0Js).
> 
> Still traveling, updating when I can on a terrible connection. Find me on Tumblr at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com).


	23. Mea Culpa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky figures out how to put his life back together. Steve screws up his birthday anyway.

Waking up single and unemployed after the worst day of one’s life wasn’t the greatest feeling in the world. In fact, it was one of the most depressing mornings Bucky had ever experienced. Natasha helped, getting him out of bed, hiding his phone so he could avoid the world, even joining him on a run to get his blood pumping before she had to leave to teach a class.

Her help continued over the next week, as Bucky figured out what the fuck he was going to do now that his life had fallen apart.

She blocked Steve’s number on his phone.

She helped him complete his application to NYU.

She took him to the movies.

She never once got mad when he freaked out over the entire situation. Which was often.

Best of all, she sat with him for two hours one day, talking about his financial position, going over his options for student loans and supplemental employment. He cried over it, just a little. It was overwhelming. But having her and his parents for support, well, it helped. It didn’t fix everything, but it put things in perspective

In the end, he went back to the coffee shop, since they were willing to hire him again. They liked him, he (barely) made enough to pay rent, and he could turn his brain off while he served coffee and danishes to the harried commuters heading to their jobs in the city. Weeks passed, Bucky finding himself in a daze most of the time.

His brain was the problem. His brain, and the fact that everything in his life reminded him of Steve. The amount of _stuff_ the man had bought for him over the course of their nine months together started to piss Bucky off, and towards the end of February, he began selling a lot of it. Number one, he needed the money. Number two, fuck Steve.

Everything he didn’t sell or donate got boxed up and shoved into the back of his closet, where he didn’t have to think about it. (Except for his laptop, which was a necessary evil, and didn’t _that_ piss him off every time he had to use it?)

With Steve’s number blocked on his phone, Bucky wasn’t sure if his ex was trying to find other ways of making contact. They’d never had a reason to exchange personal email addresses and Bucky’s StarkTech account had been deactivated the day he quit. Steve never showed up at the apartment again, though, not after Natasha’s threat.

Peter Parker called him a week and a half into his exile. Apparently, nobody knew what had happened to him, just that he’d been there one day, gone the next, and they’d been told he no longer worked for StarkTech. Even Maria hadn’t known what happened. Peter had gotten his number from Wanda, who had it saved from one of their nights out.

When Bucky told him an abbreviated version of what had happened, he assumed Peter would have no interest in continuing their friendship. He was surprised, then, when Peter laughed out loud, proclaimed it the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, and invited Bucky over for dinner with him and Wade in Queens the following night.

Wanda called him, too, insisting the world was bullshit and that nobody with any brains in their head would think Bucky had the technical know-how to pull something like that off. “You couldn’t even work the Keurig right.”

Not everyone, it seemed, was on the side of the corporations.

* * *

In early March, Steve Rogers managed to ruin his birthday for the second year in a row. This time from a distance, which was an impressive feat.

Bucky woke up, freshly twenty-five, and pulled his laptop off the nightstand. He was hoping to hear about his grad school application, so he’d started checking his email obsessively.

When he opened up a new browser window, he saw Steve’s face instead.

Steve, Tony Stark, and Pepper Potts to be exact, posing with a man and woman Bucky didn’t recognize. Only he _did_ recognize the man, he realized after a moment - it was the same man Steve had been talking to in the lobby the day he’d ignored Bucky by the elevators. They were all smiling into the camera with a headline underneath reading:

> **Bast Industries and StarkTech Announce Merger**

Bucky was a glutton for punishment, so he clicked.

> _BIRNIN ZANA and NEW YORK CITY, Mar. 10, 2018 — Bast Ind. (NYSE:BAS) and StarkTech (NYSE:STX) today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Bast Industries will acquire StarkTech in a stock-and-cash transaction valued at $162.25 per share. The agreement has been approved unanimously by the boards of directors of both companies._
> 
> _The deal combines Bast Industries’ technical and commodities-based prowess with StarkTech’s cutting-edge design. If approved, the combined corporate entity would be the largest technology firm in the world._
> 
> _“Bast Industries could not be more pleased,” said T’Challa, Bast chairman and CEO. “We have long admired the work that StarkTech is doing, and we look forward to bringing our combined expertise forward into the world.”_

Blah blah corporate blah. Bucky rolled his eyes and kept reading.

> _The news came as a surprise to experts, considering the relative position of StarkTech. Once the unparalleled leader in the industry, recent rumors of internal leaks and infighting had led to a significant slump in stock price as well as a fall to third place behind XanCorp and Bast._
> 
> _Sources say StarkTech’s Chief Design Officer, Steve Rogers, was instrumental in putting the merger together, working directly with T’Challa on the parameters of the deal..._

Bucky shut his laptop, not wanting to read any further. He wished he hadn’t read it at all, honestly. Steve was getting richer and people might lose their jobs because of it. Mergers never meant merging, he knew that much. They meant one company won and the other one lost, and while the article had been written to make it seem like an amicable partnership, the truth was that Bast was acquiring StarkTech.

And Steve had never said a thing, despite working on the deal for nearly a year. The rational part of Bucky knew that of course it wasn’t something he could share. The irrational part wondered if Steve ever would have told him, or if he would have woken up to the news as a surprise even if they were together. Sharing the same bed. In love. Which, nope. That thought led nowhere good.

Still, the merger explained all the overseas trips and Steve being gone for weeks at a time, working on things that didn’t seem to have anything to do with design.

Fuck. It was his fucking birthday. He hadn’t wanted to think about Steve Rogers, and there he was almost crying over him again.

* * *

A few days later, he got home from a morning shift at the coffee shop to find Peggy Carter sitting on his stoop. He hadn’t recognized her at first. She looked like a regular human being in jeans and a pea coat, her hair swept back into a ponytail, face less severe without her trademark red lipstick. When he realized it was her, however, he scowled.

“What do you want?” he asked. “I’m not signing anything.”

She got to her feet in one smooth motion, shaking her head. “I’m not here for that.”

“Then why are you here? I’m busy.”

“We know you didn’t do it, James,” she said, getting straight to the point and stopping him short.

He recovered quickly, rolling his eyes as he got his key out of his pocket. “Yeah, no shit I didn’t do it. I told you that a while ago, so if you’ll excuse me…”

She huffed out a breath, crossing her arms over her chest. “Look,” she said. “Five minutes of your time. That’s all I’m asking. You never have to see me again after that.”

Bucky considered her for a moment, before grunting and pushing the door open. “Fine.”

He led her upstairs and into the apartment, which was not at all clean. He didn’t care. “Take your shoes off,” he said because he wasn’t letting anyone break Natasha’s rules, least of all Peggy Carter.

Peggy did, stepping into his space and looking around like she’d been there before. Which was stupid. She hadn’t. Maybe she was just the kind of person who was at ease everywhere she went.

“Well?” Bucky said, hanging up his coat and folding his arms over his chest, wishing to God his name tag from the coffee shop wasn’t still pinned to his shirt.

“I think I ought to start from the beginning,” Peggy replied, looking infuriatingly comfortable, even standing, because Bucky wasn’t about to offer her a seat. “I’ve known about you and Steve for quite some time. Since you vomited on him at the Christmas party, as a matter of fact.”

“Wait, _what_?” Bucky exclaimed. Steve had made it seem like nobody in the world was allowed to know about them, ever. Especially not Peggy Carter, the freaking head of security for the company.

“Mmm,” she said, smiling a bit. “Sam Wilson, too, though Steve didn’t tell him until you’d actually started dating one another.” She looked up, meeting Bucky’s eye, gesturing towards his dumbfounded expression. “You’ll catch flies like that.”

Bucky closed his mouth. Peggy continued.

“Steve’s a terrible liar, James,” she said. “He also tells us everything. We’re...his family, in a way. But I understand you’ve told your roommate, so you can’t be so surprised that he’d need someone to talk to as well?”

“I, well, yeah, but that’s different…”

“Not really,” she replied, though not unkindly. “I counseled Steve against it, originally, and I stand by that. You worked for the company, and you’re very young. But he liked you and seemed bound and determined to see it through. So against my better judgment, I supported him,” her eyes glanced around the room, then back to Bucky’s face. “You can imagine my reaction, then, when the first pieces of evidence appeared indicating you were our mole.”

“But I wasn’t…”

“I’m aware,” she cut him off, holding up a hand. “But put yourself in my position for a moment, James. I knew you were with Steve, but I didn’t know you at all beyond what little he told me, and now I had evidence indicating you were selling our secrets. What was I supposed to think?”

Bucky chewed on his lip. She had a point.

“I love Steve,” she sighed, shrugging as a small smile played across her features. “I would do anything for him. So when I thought you were doing something to hurt him, I had to step in. I also needed to make sure you hadn’t brought him down with you. So…” She reached into her pocket, producing her phone. “I recorded the conversation Sam and I had with him when we laid out our suspicions.”

“You _recorded_ him?”

Peggy gave him a withering look, placing the phone on the island. She continued to explain as she flicked through a few screens, apparently searching for something. “Of course I did. If there was any way Steve might be legally implicated for your actions, I wanted to record his complete obliviousness to what you were doing. Just in case.”

“Oh my God, you guys are...some friendship...”

“I told him I was doing it!” Peggy replied, her cool demeanor giving way to something a little different, warm and bemused. That was surprising - he hadn’t thought Peggy Carter was capable of warmth. “Just _listen_ , you numpty.”

Steve’s voice filled the apartment, then, as the conversation started playing.

_“It wasn’t him.”_

_“Steve, darling, it was. He’s been sending information to Pierce through his corporate account for months. Encrypted, of course, but we have the emails.”_

_“It wasn’t him! He wouldn’t do that, Peg.”_

_“You sure about that?”_ That was a new voice - Sam Wilson, Bucky guessed.

 _“Yes.”_ Steve sounded emphatic.

_“Steve, be reasonable…”_

_“I am being reasonable. You two are jumping to conclusions based on...nothing, really. I know Bucky. I trust him. It’s absolutely not possible.”_

_“Some people are very good liars.”_

On the recording, Steve scoffed, and Bucky could almost picture him rolling his eyes. _“Let me talk to him.”_

_“Not a good idea, man.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“Sam’s right. He’ll likely say anything to keep himself out of trouble.”_

_“Or he’ll tell me the truth. Which is that he didn’t do anything wrong.”_

_“Mmm, which puts us right back where we are now, doesn’t it?”_

_“Peggy, you…”_

_“What about a test?”_ That was Sam again.

 _“A test?”_ Peggy and Steve together.

_“Yeah. Give him something. One of the phones Pierce already stole the plans for, tell him it’s an as-yet-unseen prototype. See what he does with it.”_

_“...no.”_ That was Steve.

_“Come on, Steve. He plays with the phone a couple of weeks, hands it back to you. He’s clear. He hands it over to Pierce, then we know.”_

_“I don’t need to test him, Sam. He didn’t do anything wrong. You two don’t know him like I do.”_

_“Then don’t do it for yourself, do it for us. Make us see what you see.”_

A long pause, then a huffed sigh from Steve. “... _fine._ ”

Peggy stopped the recording, regarding Bucky carefully. “He never doubted you,” she said after a moment. “Not even once, James. He gave you the phone to prove that we were being absolute plonkers. Which we were.”

“You let me think he...was setting me up,” Bucky realized, his eyes narrowing at her. “You said he thought I’d turn the phone over to Pierce.”

“I did let you think that,” she agreed. “Not very kind of me. But I wasn’t feeling terribly generous towards you that day. I’d just seen the phone turn up at XanCorp and I wanted you gone. As quickly as possible. Steve kept protesting your innocence. He hasn’t stopped, actually.”

That was a lot to take in, and his brain was trying to wrap itself around everything he’d learned from the recording and from Peggy. “But that’s...okay, so the phone ended up with Alexander Pierce anyway,” Bucky said. That was the part he still couldn’t figure out. “I don’t get that. If you know I didn’t do it...how?”

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “About that. We ah...do you remember the emails we presented you with? The ones you’d supposedly sent to Pierce?”

Bucky nodded, crossing his arms over his chest.

“We showed them to Steve a few days after we let you go, once he was speaking to us again...though he’s still not really speaking to us…” she sighed, looking as upset as she ever did, obviously bothered by it. “Anyhow, we were trying to prove it to him, I suppose, to make him understand why we’d let you go without telling him. He didn’t know, by the way, not until we’d done it.”

“Oh.” That was interesting. Sort of.

“Of course,” Peggy continued, “he took one look at the dates and pointed out that there was no way you could have sent those particular messages because you were practically delirious with pneumonia at his flat on several of the days in question.”

Bucky was suddenly extremely happy he’d been so sick.

“What was especially odd,” Peggy continued. “Was that the emails on those dates had been sent from your computer at the office if we went by the IP address. That caused me to go back and review security footage. The tapes showed someone accessing your machine. The same someone also took the phone from your bag while you were at the gym. We don’t put cameras in the locker room, but there was only one person who came in and out while you were inside.”

Bucky thought back to the day the phone had been stolen, trying to remember who he’d seen at the gym. One particular face jumped out.

“Brock fucking Rumlow?!” he exclaimed.

“I’m not at liberty to comment on ongoing legal proceedings,” Peggy said crisply, though there was a slight smirk on her face. “Regardless of who it was, we know it wasn’t you. None of it has ever been you. Which Steve always knew. He never once wavered on it, James. Please understand that much at least.”

Bucky wasn’t sure what to do, so he sat down, hard, on one of the dining room benches. “I…”

“Of course, you can have your job back,” Peggy said, interrupting his thought. “We’d like to keep this quiet. Maria Hill’s been beating doors down trying to figure out why you’d been let go. The official story was that you’d taken another position without giving leave, but...”

“I don’t want the job back,” Bucky said immediately. His vehemence was surprising, but he’d known the minute the words were out of Peggy’s mouth that the last thing he wanted was to go back to StarkTech. Whether or not NYU panned out, he didn’t care. The bridge was burnt. “I can’t. I’m not...I can’t work there anymore.”

Peggy, to her credit, didn’t look shocked or offended. “I understand,” she said. “We’ll be happy to provide you with glowing recommendations, wherever you choose to go next. And...I’m authorized to offer you six months worth of severance. Nothing to sign, no non-disclosures. We buggered this up, James. I’m sorry.”

Hearing the apology from her meant more than Bucky realized it would. He nodded, mouth twisting into a frown as he looked up and studied her. “I...I know you were just doing your job. I probably would have suspected me, too.”

Leaning against the island, Peggy sighed, shaking her head. “That’s kind of you,” she said after a moment. “More generous than I deserve. I ought to have done my due diligence before I ever took it to Steve. If I had, I might have discovered my mistake sooner. Honestly, my first clue should have been the fact that you held onto the phone for nearly a month before it went missing. I’m…” she smiled a little bit. “You know my history with Steve. I’m overprotective of him. He’s a good person. Stubborn. Trusts too easily. So I was quick to judge you in the interest of protecting someone I love. If it had been anyone but Steve, I would have done better. He’s my soft spot.” She hesitated, as though unsure her next statement would be welcome. “I believe you’re his.”  

Bucky bit his lip and shrugged, everything still too raw for him to offer much in the way of a response to that particular revelation. “I’m...pissed at him. I get that he meant well but...I still don’t think I want to see him. It feels like too much.”

Peggy nodded, holding her hands up. “You’ll get no judgment from me, James. It was a rotten thing to have happen to you, and I feel awfully guilty about my part in it. But Steve misses you tremendously. As I said, he’s not speaking to me or to Sam more than necessary at the moment, but I can tell he’s unhappy. And…you ought to know he has no idea I’m here right now.”

“He didn’t send you?”

“He did not,” Peggy replied, pushing away from the island and picking up her phone. “He was happy with you. I hope you’ll be able to forgive him eventually.”

Bucky shrugged, thinking that over. “Tell him...you can tell him he ruined my birthday with his stupid merger. And that I’ll…” he hesitated. “You can tell him where I work.” He’d noticed Peggy eyeing the name badge on his shirt. “But that I still need like...time, please?”

“I’ll tell him,” she said quietly. “And I’ll have a check cut for your severance and sent here. I’m sorry, James, I know I said that before. But I am. I hope you can forgive Steve, and I hope...well, I’d like it if you could forgive me too, someday.”

Bucky thought that over as he walked her to the door, hesitating while she put her boots back on. “I’m uh...still pissed. Like I said. But you don’t have to call me James. Most people just call me Bucky.”

“Bucky, then,” she said, a slight smile on her face as she got to her feet. “Have a good afternoon.”

Bucky leaned against the door once he’d closed it behind her, pushing a hand through his hair and blowing out a shaky breath.

It had been a weird day.

(He was pretty sure he kind of liked Peggy Carter.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the wonderful Crockzilla wrote a timestamp that coincides with this chapter, featuring Peter and Wade's dinner with Bucky. It is perfect, and if you're reading through this story and are interested in it, please take a second to read! [Dinner with Friends](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12658416).
> 
> Tumblr: [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com)
> 
>  **AN 10/26/17:** I appreciate the fact that people have strong feelings about Peggy’s apology. It has been discussed at length in the comments. I’m not getting into it further: I stand behind my characterization of her. She’s putting herself in a very vulnerable position by admitting culpability, even if her delivery is lacking. She’s human.


	24. Mountains Bending Rivers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I swear that I will do my best to be here just the way you like it, even though it’s hard to hide, push my feelings all aside. I will rearrange my plans and change for you.

It took two weeks for Steve to turn up at the coffee shop. At eleven o’clock in the morning on a Wednesday, to be specific. Bucky looked up from wiping down the counter when the bell over the door rang and found him standing there, a sheepish expression on his stupid, handsome face. Their eyes met, and Bucky froze for a moment before dropping his gaze, continuing his work, Steve taking a few short steps to approach the counter.

“Hi,” Steve offered when Bucky didn’t greet him.

Bucky glanced up, glad his manager was in the back and the shop was empty, save for one lone patron working on the Times crossword at a corner table. “Hi,” he said, looking anywhere but Steve’s face.

“I tried texting you…” Steve said quietly.

Bucky frowned. “I blocked your number.”

“I figured,” he sighed, one hand coming to rest on the counter where Bucky could see it. He’d always liked Steve’s hands - big, strong, able to wrap him up and reassure him.

Bucky blinked a couple of times, tamping down the swell of emotion threatening to overwhelm him. He shook his head before moving to the register, determined to be professional. “Can I get you something?” he asked, clearing his throat.

Steve didn’t say anything for a minute - Bucky didn’t know whether he was studying the menu or studying him. Didn’t care. “Just a plain coffee,” Steve requested finally. “With cream.”

“Sure,” he said, punching it into the machine. “For here, or to go?”

“For here,” he replied. Because of course it was.

It didn’t take long for Bucky to get the coffee, presenting it to Steve and letting him swipe his card. He didn’t react when Steve dropped a twenty into the tip jar, because he didn’t need his pity tips. He didn’t need anything. He could take care of himself. Steve retreated to a table by the window as Bucky went back to cleaning up. He still had two hours left on his shift - he assumed Steve wouldn’t stay the entire time.

He assumed wrong, of course, because Steve Rogers was stubborn.

By the time Bucky’s replacement arrived, Steve had gotten through two coffees, a scone, a sandwich, and he’d read the Times from back to front. Bucky was thoroughly annoyed with him, though he couldn’t put his finger on _why_. Yes, he was still upset about the way Steve had handled things with the phone, but that was a low-simmering anger. Ever since Peggy had spoken to him, he’d been processing what happened in a slightly different way. The money helped. Knowing he could go to the press if he wanted helped. The fact that she’d been genuine in her apology helped. Sure, the anger was there, but it wasn’t the white-hot rage he’d felt during the first few days of unemployment. It was tiring being that angry all the time, so he’d been working on letting it go. He couldn’t change what had happened, but he could be the bigger person. And, well, hearing Steve defend him so ardently to Peggy and Sam had been something. Steve, for all that he’d been wrong, hadn’t done anything maliciously. He’d just been an idiot.

Being annoyed with him was different. Maybe it was just because Steve was being _Steve_. Who got up to leave as soon as Bucky put on his coat.

“Can I walk with you?” Steve asked, pulling his jacket on. (It really wasn’t fair that it was his leather jacket, which was Bucky’s favorite because of how it smelled.)

“Free country,” Bucky replied. He knew it was the response of a seven-year-old, but he wasn’t feeling especially mature right then. Still, he recognized the out for what it was: if he’d said no, Steve would have left him alone. He appreciated that.

Steve didn’t say anything, just fell into step beside him as they left the cafe. He was silent for nearly three blocks, as a matter of fact, which was probably some sort of record.

“Peggy said she spoke with you,” he said finally, when the silence was becoming oppressive.

“Yup.”

“And…?”

“And I’m still really pissed at you,” he replied, scowling as he rooted around his bag for his keys. They were getting closer to his place, and he didn’t want to have to dig for them when they got there. “I know you were all...knight in shining armor, or whatever, defending my honor. But I’m still mad.”

“Why?”

Bucky glowered, pushing his hair out of his eyes as he picked up speed. “Because I _am_. Because you lied to me. And like...I’m not sure you understand that what you did is wrong? I know you were trying to prove my innocence or whatever but that’s pretty fucked up.”

“Yes,” Steve agreed. “It was. I did. Fuck up, I mean. I know I was wrong.”

That was surprising, to say the least. Bucky had assumed Steve would get defensive immediately, so his hackles were already up. When he admitted fault so readily, it caught Bucky off-guard and he stopped short, glancing up at Steve with a raised eyebrow before resolutely dropping his eyes again.

“I should have just asked you about everything,” Steve admitted. “I’m sorry, Bucky. I knew the accusation was bullshit, but I went along with their stupid plan because I was so sure I was right, I just had to show them they were wrong. And they were. But I didn’t think about you, or how you’d feel. I honestly didn’t think you’d ever find out.”

Bucky snorted, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. Typical Steve. “That doesn’t make it _better_.”

“It doesn’t,” Steve said. “I know that.”

“I don’t think you do.” The bitter notion was out of his mouth before he thought better of it, the words hanging in the air between them. Steve looked surprised at the vehemence in Bucky’s voice, and Bucky supposed that if he was in for a penny he should be in for a pound, so he continued. “You’re always trying to do what you think is best for me, but you never...just ask me. It’s like you’re protecting me or...I don’t know. You do this stuff, but you never let me in.”

“Bucky…”

“No, shut up, let me finish,” he said, cutting Steve off at the knees. “Anytime I tried to dig a little deeper, you’d change the subject or distract me. Your friends, your life, your family...you didn’t want me in any of it. It made me feel like you were keeping part of yourself from me. And that’s...that’s fine, Steve, I guess you’re entitled to that. But it’s not a relationship. I told you everything. About me, I mean.”

He couldn’t bring himself to look at Steve for his reaction, so he just started walking again, though Steve’s footsteps soon caught up. “Okay...hang on a second. That’s...I’m calling your bluff on that one, Barnes. Apparently, you didn’t tell me everything, because I didn’t know you felt that way.”

Point, Rogers. Bucky scowled. “Yeah, well, I never told you because I was always afraid you’d like...flip out on me if I pushed.”

“What?” It was Steve’s turn to splutter a little, reaching a hand out to touch Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky twisted away immediately.

“Don’t.”

“Sorry,” Steve replied, looking genuinely guilty as he pulled his arm back, holding both hands up in front of himself. “I’m...I won’t touch you again, but...Bucky, flip out on you? Seriously?”

“Uh huh,” he shrugged. “Like all the stuff you’d do when you had a bad day, pick fights with me because something else pissed you off. You were right, you know. The first time we talked about it. You had all the power. It’s not about you being older than me or something stupid like that. It’s because I gave my whole fucking self to you, and you gave me half of yourself back.”

Damn it. He wasn’t going to cry. Not here, not on the street. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he stalked off. For a moment, he thought Steve wasn’t going to follow him. He didn’t know how he felt about that - relief mixed with fear, maybe? It was the relief that flooded him, though, when he heard Steve jogging to catch up.

“Bucky…” Steve sounded a little desperate. That was new. “Look, I’m here. I can’t apologize enough for what happened and...I want to talk. Please? All that stuff...I wasn’t trying to keep you out. Not intentionally. It kills me that you thought that, but I didn’t even know you were feeling that way.” He paused, and when he spoke again, he was practically pleading. “I can’t fix something I didn’t know about. You’re...I miss you. Can’t we talk about it?”

Bucky was going to say no. He absolutely was. So he was as surprised as anyone when what came out of his mouth instead was, “I guess. You can come upstairs.”

Stupid heart, overruling his obviously superior brain.

They were both quiet as they walked the remaining half-block to Bucky’s building. He unlocked the door and let them up and inside. Steve didn’t have to be asked to take off his shoes, hanging up his jacket as well. “You want a drink?” Bucky offered, just for something to do.

“I’m alright,” Steve said, his voice strained. “Can I use the bathroom? All that coffee went straight through me.”

Bucky shrugged, going to hang up his coat and get himself some water while Steve took care of business. He wished he didn’t feel so close to tears, or that he was able to express himself better. The rational part of him understood where Steve was coming from - Bucky _had_ withheld his feelings about everything to do with his Steve-related frustrations. He’d pushed them down out of fear, and he had indicated neither the depth of his feelings nor his very real concerns about the relationship. As a result, he was angry about things that went well beyond Steve’s breach of trust with the phone. Things Steve wouldn’t - couldn’t - know about. Hell, Bucky still hadn’t completely figured out what was upsetting him so much, only that there was a core of hurt within him that wasn’t going to be resolved by Steve’s mere presence. It was going to take some actual, grown-up conversation, and wasn’t that just terrifying?

He settled on the couch to wait since it was the only decent seating in the room. It meant Steve would be closer than he liked, though, so he made sure to press himself as tightly up against the arm as he could, hoping Steve would take the hint.

Steve did, sitting down well on the other side of the couch when he emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, resting his hands on his knees and looking straight ahead. Bucky studied his profile. If he hadn’t known better, he’d swear Steve had been crying.

“So…” Steve said, sighing. “You’re mad about a lot of stuff, huh?”

Bucky rolled his eyes again, a natural reaction to a stupid question. “Yup.”

“You wanna try...talking about some more of it?”

Grunting at that, he reached for his water. “I dunno. Why don’t you tell me what you think I’m most mad about?”

The response was immediate. “The phone. Not telling you about it. That stuff.”

Bucky shrugged, tamping down the urge to snort because way to go for the easy answer, Rogers. “Eh. Kind of. I’m mostly over that now, since I talked to Peggy. I still think it’s shitty what you did, not coming to me directly. But I guess I can kind of see why you did it. Even if you’re an asshole for doing it that way.”

“Oh. So…”

Cutting him off again, Bucky continued, because it was all starting to come together for him. The thoughts that had been floating around in his brain for months were coalescing into the specifics of his hurt and his anger. As it turned out, he’d been repressing a lot. “So, to start, the not trusting me part? That’s pissing me off. It’s the same as what I said outside - you have this whole life I’m not a part of. But when stuff in that life went wrong, you would get all shitty with me without telling me what was bothering you. And like, I know our whole thing was a secret, and we couldn’t be open? I get that. But you still could have talked to me. Same with anything about your friends or...you know, your mom. All of it. It was like you didn’t think I could handle it.”

Steve didn’t say anything for a minute, processing the deluge. Bucky appreciated that he wasn’t being terribly _Steve_ about it and snapping off a response before thinking it through. It was a nice change. “So you’re mad that you think I don’t trust you?”

“Kind of.”

“And that I didn’t tell you things about my life?”

“Kind of.”

“I do trust you, though,” he said quietly. “As much as I trust anyone. More than, actually. Can I...walk you through what I was thinking?”

Bucky nodded, chewing on his bottom lip.

“Okay,” Steve agreed. “I knew we couldn’t be open about what we were doing. And I guess I thought it would hurt your feelings to hear about everything you couldn’t be a part of.” His fingers flexed on his thighs, and Bucky noticed him blinking a few times, looking up to the ceiling and then back down at his hands before he spoke again. “And the ah...all the stuff in my past...my mother...that’s not just you. I don’t like talking about her with anyone.”

Bucky frowned, looking down at his lap. It made sense, even if it was a very Steve reason for not confiding in him - it was the whole shielding Bucky vibe again. “That’s...okay. I get that. Even if it’s...more of that protecting me crap. But it’s not just that stuff. I guess...I guess if I’m being honest, the whole...not being open thing was starting to piss me off, too. I hated not being able to tell anyone about us.”

Steve looked over at him, a frown marring his features. “You never told me that.”

Shrugging, Bucky pulled a pillow into his lap, just because playing with the tassels was something to do with his hands. “Can you blame me?” he asked softly. “If I’d started pressing to be with you. Really with you. You would have ended things.”

“Bucky,” Steve frowned, and now he just sounded sad. “What did I ever do that made you think I’d want to end things with you?”

A lump was forming in Bucky’s throat. He pulled on a loose thread and frowned. The truth was, he’d been so afraid of it happening that he’d never tested the waters to see how Steve might react. All he’d had to go on were the worst-case scenarios he’d played out in his head over and over again. Scenarios in which Steve dumped him callously for daring to ask. Which, in retrospect, was based more on the few times Steve had been short with him than the hundreds of times he’d been sweet. Still, Bucky reasoned, the nastiness lingered far longer than the kindness. “Your stupid temper. I just...assumed you would. Plus, you didn’t ever bring it up, like, what our future looked like. So I figured you didn’t want to…” His bottom lip quivered, and shit, there were the fucking waterworks. “I figured you didn’t see one. I just wanted to hang on to what we had for as long as I could. Even if it hurt.”

“I didn’t know I was doing that, either,” Steve offered, frowning. “Or, not doing that, apparently. Sounds like there’s a lot you weren’t...comfortable bringing to me. That’s on me. Completely. If I put you in a position where you felt you couldn’t be honest with me, I can’t apologize enough for it.”

Bucky shrugged, trying to formulate a response.

Steve spoke up again before he could, sighing heavily and looking over at him. “The thing is, Bucky, I need you to know that...I was in. One hundred percent. I was so crazy about you - _am_ so crazy about you - that it scares me sometimes.”

Bucky’s mouth fell open a little. Steve had given him more in the past twenty seconds than he had in the entire time they’d been together. Then again, Bucky had been completely honest with him for the first time, well, ever. Maybe there _was_ something to the whole communication thing. When he responded, his voice wavered slightly. “I guess I would say, then, that you weren’t showing me. I thought you...I always thought I was way more into it than you were. That you...that there wasn’t much point to worrying about the future?”

The frown marring Steve’s features deepened. “That wasn’t my intention. I thought you understood how much...how I felt about you. How much I needed you.”

“I guess I didn’t get it,” Bucky rolled his eyes, his mouth twisting up into a scowl as he fought to keep his tears at bay. “You know, sometimes I felt like I was just...like I wasn’t a real person. I was just something you could use when you wanted to, get rid of when you didn’t.” There it was, then, the crux of it. Steve loved his shiny toys, and Bucky had started to feel like just another part of his collection.

“Bucky…”

The way Steve said his name was what broke him, really, tears spilling over and onto his cheeks as he buried his face in the pillow. “Fuuuuuuuck,” he whined, because crying in front of Steve had been number one on his Do Not Fucking Do This list.

It came as a big shock, then, when Steve started laughing. Really laughing, hard enough that it was almost like he was crying at the same time. Reluctantly, Bucky pulled the pillow away from his face and was flabbergasted to find that there actually _were_ tears in Steve’s eyes. It made a funny picture, truth be told, and the sight of it was enough to abate his own tears somewhat.

“What the fuck, Steve?” He managed, reaching a hand up to wipe his eyes.

“This is so…” Steve laughed again, shaking his head and looking at Bucky imploringly. “Can I please just hug you? I’m dying, Buck, I miss you so much and we’re just talking circles around each other. Please?”

Bucky considered resisting, putting the walls back up. But he did still have a _lot_ of feelings to feel about Steve Rogers, and the more they talked the more he realized that what had seemed impossible was actually entirely fixable. So he shrugged, putting the pillow back down on the couch and leaning in as Steve reached out to wrap him up, pulling him across the gulf between them and hugging him tightly. It was hard to fight against something like that, and Bucky found himself looping his arms around Steve’s neck in return, burying his face against Steve’s shoulder.

He stayed there for a while, getting the initial onslaught of tears out. Eventually, he pulled back far enough that he could see Steve’s face. Steve, who was looking at him so fondly, reached up to brush some hair off his forehead “I’m so sorry, Bucky,” he said, his eyes still wet. “I’m sorry that I made you feel like you were anything less than the most important thing in my life this past year. I know you’re still mad, and I want to figure that out. But I need you to know that everything I did was me trying to show you how much I care about you. Even if I fucked it up along the way.”

Bucky nodded, some of the tightness in his chest dissipating. “I don’t work at StarkTech anymore,” he said softly, his thoughts too muddled to come up with anything more eloquent or coherent in the moment. “I mean, you know that but…”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “I know. So if you let me...if _we_ try this again, I want to do it right. You’d be my partner, not my secret, okay?”

A small smile spread across Bucky’s features, though he tried to look appropriately serious before he responded. “We still have to talk about a lot of shit,” he mumbled. “I’m not saying yes yet.”

Except, well, he probably was. And he knew it. He was just going to make Steve work for it a little. Or a lot. He hadn’t decided.

“I know,” Steve replied. “Much as you want to talk, pal, I’m here for it. But don’t hide things from me anymore, yeah? If you’re pissed, be pissed, and tell me about it. I’m...an asshole, as you’re so fond of reminding me. I can’t promise I won’t be one when you bring me a problem. But...even if I’m a dick, Bucky, I swear I’d never break up with you because you brought something to me. Just...at least give me the chance to be a stubborn jerk instead of bottling up what you’re worried about? Then you can yell at me about it - you know I like that.”

Bucky laughed, he couldn’t help it. Steve was an idiot. His idiot. Maybe. “You do like that,” he agreed.

“I meant what I said,” Steve smiled, reaching up to brush his fingers across Bucky’s damp cheek. “I’m in this one hundred percent. I know that’s probably tough to believe right now, but I’m going to prove it to you. If you’ll let me. I love you.”

The three words hung in the air between them, Bucky shocked and Steve looking remarkably confident in the statement. He didn’t have to say it back, he realized, and for a moment he wondered if he shouldn’t, if withholding the sentiment as a way to punish Steve was a way of reclaiming some power. Didn’t seem right, though. If Steve wanted him to be honest, well, he could try. They could try. Even if it didn’t work out, they were at least starting again on equal footing.

“I’ve never been in love before,” he replied softly, his voice still shaky. “I don’t know if that’s what this is. But...I was thinking about it for a while, before everything went to shit. And I think it might be being in love. With you. Even if it’s scary.”

Steve smiled, pulling Bucky closer. “It is scary,” he agreed. “It means you can do a lot of damage to someone without realizing it. Case in point.” Sighing, he brushed a kiss into Bucky’s hair. He was quiet for a while before speaking again. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“What you said before, about me treating you more like a concept than a person? That scares the shit out of me. It’s...not the first time I’ve been accused of that.”

Bucky was surprised to hear him admit it, and he craned his neck to study Steve’s features. He seemed anxious, a hard set to his jaw. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed. “I thought I was getting better at it, but apparently not. I can be real big picture, Buck. I get a vision in my head for how something’s gonna go and then I just want to slot in all the pieces to make it fit what I see. I forget there’s someone on the other end who might view it differently.”

That made a lot of sense to Bucky. The presents, the elaborate dates, the grand gestures. He didn’t mind it, most of the time. He loved a lot of it, in fact. And he understood that the majority of the gestures were how Steve showed love or affection. But he could also see where Steve was stubborn and idealistic - not necessarily the best at adapting to someone else’s emotions in the moment. Even the big plan to clear Bucky’s name with the stupid phone had been Steve’s need to be right coming at the expense of Bucky’s autonomy.

“Maybe...you ought to like...see a therapist or something,” he offered after a moment, testing the waters of the new ‘being honest’ mandate.

Steve smiled, raising an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “I’m serious, don’t look so skeptical. It’s something you should work on, and it’s the kind of thing you need like...an impartial person for. Not a boyfriend. It shouldn’t be my job to like...fix your shit. And it’s…” He hesitated before pressing forward with his request, taking Steve at his word. “Okay so, that’s gonna be a condition of us getting back together. That you talk to someone else about your baggage. A professional.”

“I...would be willing to try,” Steve acquiesced after a moment. “Even though I don’t love the idea of talking to a stranger about my problems.”

“Nobody loves the idea,” Bucky shrugged. “Working on your own crap is hard. But I’m not...I’m not jumping back into this without it. I can’t be the emotional punching bag again, okay?”

Steve nodded, frowning as he squeezed Bucky’s arm lightly. “I don’t ever want to do that to you, Buck. I hate that I made you feel that way at all. And I get it, the impartial observer thing. I don’t...like it, but if it’s what we need then...I’ll give it a shot. For you.”

Bucky smiled and bit his lip. “It’s...kind of supposed to be for you, actually. Like, you can’t just do it for me. You have to want to change yourself.”

“I’ll work on that part,” he replied. “Doing it for me. Is that okay?”

“Yes,” he said with a shrug. Going to therapy at the request of someone else wasn’t ideal, Bucky knew, but he had confidence in the notion that it still might eventually help Steve process his mountain of issues. “You need it.”

“Probably have for a while,” Steve agreed. “That’s why I’ve avoided it like the plague. When’d you get so smart about this stuff, anyway?”

“I’ve always been smart about this stuff,” he said, fingers playing with the collar of Steve’s shirt. “I almost majored in psychology when I did undergrad and...I’m gonna go to grad school for it in the fall. You should know that. If I get in, I mean. I’m waiting to hear back from NYU right now.”

(Bucky hadn’t missed the way Steve tensed when he mentioned going to school, then relaxed when he’d named one that was local.)

Steve was quiet for a minute, absorbing the new information, his thumb rubbing small circles on Bucky’s arm. “I think that’s great,” he said eventually. “But I’m sorry if you felt like it was your only option after what happened…”

“You know, Steve,” Bucky cut him off, smirking a little. “Not everything is about you. I’ve been feeling restless for a while. All the parts of my job that I liked...it was stuff that involved interacting with people and getting to know them. I’m good at that. Figuring people out. And I didn’t...I didn’t love the position Maria promoted me into. It was too...fake. I want to do something real.”

Steve sat with that for a minute, thinking it through. Bucky appreciated how intently he was listening to everything that came out of his mouth and ardently hoped it would continue. “It’s hard to admit when you’re not happy, Bucky. I’m proud of you for...figuring out what you want.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t gotten in yet.”

“You will.”

“We’ll see,” he sighed, taking a little initiative and nuzzling at Steve’s neck, just because it was there and he could. “Anyway, if I get in, I can probably find you a really good therapist.”

Steve chuckled, teasing him a little. “So the therapist thing is definitely non-negotiable?”

“Non-negotiable,” he agreed, poking Steve in the stomach. “Because I love you. And I want to figure this out.”

There it was. Official. Bucky Barnes: king of second chances. He was pleased to note the smile crossing Steve’s features as he tightened his grip on Bucky. “Love you, too. You okay?”

Bucky smiled a little, pulling back so he could look at Steve properly, then pressing their foreheads together. “Workin’ on it,” he murmured. “Still got a lot I need to stay to you, so you should probably stay a while. Let Tasha rip you a new asshole when she gets home.”

“That’s a terrifying proposition,” Steve teased.

“You know, I heard the whole thing when she kicked you out,” he smirked.

Steve shifted his weight, drawing Bucky closer and bringing a hand up to play with the ends of his hair. “I figured you were around somewhere. Sorry I was...myself. At her. And at you by proxy. She’s a good friend.”

Bucky shrugged. “So’s Peggy. I like her. I mean, I’d like to meet her in a non-horrible capacity but...she looks out for you. So we’re good. You should start talking to her and Sam again.”

“She told you about that, huh?”

“You’re so stubborn,” he replied. “Be nice to your friends.”

“They weren’t nice to you.”

“If I can get over it, so can you. And I’m mostly over it. Mostly.” Smiling, he leaned in for a kiss - a proper one. When he pulled back, he bit his lip and shrugged. “Besides, you need a lot of help. And I’m getting over a lot these days.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Bucky had just started to say something else when the front door opened to reveal five foot three inches of redhead. Who was _not_ pleased with their houseguest.

By some small miracle, it only took twenty minutes to calm Natasha down, which was something of a record. She read Steve the riot act, though, and he took it as gracefully as possible.

They took another walk together once Natasha had said her piece. Said walk ended up taking nearly two hours, across the Brooklyn Bridge and back. They talked through a few more things while getting riled up at each other a couple more times. Unsurprisingly, there were some very thorny issues hanging between them that weren’t going to be resolved in a day. Bucky wasn’t suddenly magically good at expressing everything he’d been repressing for a year. Just like Steve wasn’t suddenly _not_ defensive and stubborn. Still, it was a start. By the time they got back to Bucky’s apartment and ordered dinner from the Chinese place that had opened down the block, things were moving in an okay direction.

Steve ended up spending the night in Bucky’s bed, where they slept a little and talked a lot. Bucky was the first one to notice the dawn starting to filter in past the curtains. “We stayed up all night,” he said.

“We did,” Steve agreed, reaching a hand out to stroke Bucky’s cheek. “You want to get some sleep?”

He nodded, cuddling up against Steve’s warm body and yawning. “More talking tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Steve agreed. “Think we can fit a little make-up sex into the agenda, too?”

“Mmm, it’ll be tough, but I think we can slot it in,” he murmured as his eyes slid shut.

After all, Bucky had never been afraid of a little hard work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: the epilogue! As you can see, this work is now part of a series. If you're interested in reading what comes next, you should be able to subscribe to either the series or me as an author and you'll be notified when I start posting one-shots in this 'verse.
> 
> Musical selection for the chapter title comes from "[If It's the Beaches](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j1dE71o1ks)" by the Avett Brothers, aka the best break up + reconciliation song of all time. Plus, it's a song that fits the Bucky and Steve of this universe perfectly.
> 
> Thank you for all the support in the form of kudos and comments you've given me while writing this fic. I'll express more in the epilogue, but this is the first long-form fanfic I've ever actually finished, so it means a lot that people enjoyed it. 
> 
> Please come flail with me on Tumblr, I'm always happy to chat at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com). I'm participating in the MCU Kink Bingo so there should be lots of fun, kinky fics coming soon and I'll always post them to Tumblr.


	25. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying again isn't easy, but it's worth it, Bucky finds. He prefers to focus on the good parts.

**April**

The email arrived on a Sunday afternoon when Bucky was at Steve’s place. They’d been back together for exactly three weeks and things were good. Tentatively. All the talking they’d done had given way to a honeymoon phase, at any rate, so they were spending as much time together as possible. Bucky felt they were being remarkably good at keeping the lines of communication open.

For example, he’d been very vocal about the fact that Steve’s taste in PBS shows was bad and he should feel bad. Because watching This Old House was the most boring thing ever. So he was playing with his phone instead, feet in Steve’s lap as his boyfriend occasionally rubbed them. That part of conciliatory Steve was fun, too. Bucky, of course, saw the email arrive right as Steve pressed a thumb into the arch of his left foot, and he yelped.

“What?” Steve said, sounding panicked, afraid he’d hurt him.

“NYU! It’s...holy shit, I got in!”

He barely had time to register his excitement before Steve was all over him, hugging him and kissing him and congratulating him.

(And sure, the sex had been good since they’d gotten back together, but _grad school acceptance_ sex was out of this world.)

* * *

 

**May**

“Steve, so glad you could make it,” Pepper said with a smile as she opened the door to the luxe penthouse she and Tony shared.

“Wouldn’t miss Tony’s birthday for the world,” Steve replied, holding out a gift-wrapped box, his hand warm on the small of Bucky’s back. “I don’t think you’ve met my partner. Bucky, Pepper.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Bucky,” she offered, extending a hand for him to shake as she took the present with the other. If she knew who he was, she didn’t let on, instead ushering them further into the apartment where there was an assortment of people Bucky didn’t know, along with a few he did.

Steve introduced him to every single one of them, crowing proudly about Bucky’s acceptance to NYU and what he was going to be studying in the fall. Bucky still felt a little out of place among this particular crowd, but knowing Steve was doing everything he could to make him feel welcome meant a lot.

Bucky really did love him.

* * *

 

**June**

“Steve,” Bucky whispered, reaching over to poke his arm, unable to sleep with the noise of a million European teenagers emanating from the rooms around them and the bar below.

“Unf, Bucky, what?” Steve grumbled, having dropped off to sleep nearly immediately once they’d gotten back from their truly delicious pizza-and-gelato dinner.

“I hate hostels,” he said dramatically. “I’m sorry I wanted to do Europe on the cheap. Can we please check into a hotel? I’m going to die if I don’t get a good night’s sleep.”

Steve pushed himself up onto his forearms, smirking as he looked down at him. “I told you so.”

“Ugh. I know. But I hate this so much, Stevie, I’m willing to give that to you. Please. Please, please, please?”

“You’re a brat.”

“Yeah, but I’m gonna be a brat with room service.”

* * *

 

**July**

“You should move in here.”

Bucky nearly spat out the piece of birthday cake he’d just shoved into his mouth. “What?” He managed, the words muffled around the dessert.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Steve laughed, watching Bucky carefully from his position across the mattress. Steve had taken the prior year’s promise of cake very seriously, ordering one that they were now enjoying in bed.

Bucky flipped him the bird before swallowing and trying again. “Sorry, gramps. Now: _what_?”

“Hey,” Steve laughed, reaching over to swat his arm before pulling him in for a sweet kiss that tasted like lemon frosting. “I said, you should move in here. You’re starting school in a month. It’s closer to campus and you’ll save money. I can cover rent on your old place until Natasha finds a new roommate.”

“Um…”

“C’mon,” Steve wheedled. “I mean, you don’t have to. But...there’s a lot in the pro column, that’s all I’m saying.”

“You’re a dork,” Bucky smirked. “Can I think about it?”

“Sure.”

(As it turned out, Natasha had been angling for a way to have Dottie move in for a while, so she didn’t really mind. Even if she and Bucky both cried a bit on the day he moved out.)

* * *

 

**August**

“Smile for the camera, honey,” Steve grinned, using his phone to snap photos of Bucky as he picked up his messenger bag.

“Oh my God, Stevie, stop,” Bucky groused. He was already nervous about his first day of classes, and Steve acting like a proud parent was both weirdly endearing and completely obnoxious.

“I can’t help it, I’m just so proud of you, munchkin,” Steve teased.

“Steve, god damn it…” he was really trying not to laugh.

“Want me to pack you a lunch? Kids still like Lunchables, right? You want a trapper keeper? Some stickers?”

“I’m never sleeping with you again, I swear to God.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Barnes.”

* * *

 

**September**

Why had he ever wanted to run a marathon? No, scratch that, he’d wanted to run a _half_ marathon, and then his _stupid boyfriend_ had given him an inflated sense of worth and convinced him to run a full. Twenty-six point two miles in the fucking Hamptons, alongside hundreds of other people, and it was miserably hot for late September.

Halfway through, he felt like his heart was going to fall out of his butt. That was when he heard someone screaming his name and looked up to find Wanda, America, Peter, and Wade jumping up and down at the mile marker with a sign that read “Don’t die, buddy!” (Well, Peter and America were jumping. Wade and Wanda just waved at him.)

He hadn’t known they were coming, but seeing them made him grin and certainly gave him a second wind.

Quill and Barton were at mile sixteen, obnoxiously blowing horns and yelling at him to move his ass.

All five Barneses were at mile twenty, and what the hell, Becca was supposed to be at school, wasn’t she? His sisters hollered, while his parents held up possibly the most encouraging sign of all time, decorated with balloons and glitter, alongside a caricature of Bucky crossing the finish line.

(If he had to guess, the artist responsible for the sign was possibly responsible for the entire retinue of people mysteriously appearing in the Hamptons on a Saturday morning to cheer for him.)

Natasha and Dottie were at mile twenty-four, making plenty of noise. Their sign was an entirely homemade production, featuring a terrible photo of Bucky from high school along with block lettering proclaiming, “You can’t feel any worse than this haircut!”

Steve, of course, was at mile twenty-six point two, waiting for Bucky with a grin as he collapsed into his arms, sweaty and disgusting and so, so proud of himself.

“You’re fucking incredible, baby,” he murmured against Bucky’s damp hair. “You wanna go eat some pasta?”

He really did.

* * *

 

**October**

“Batman and Robin?”

“No.”

“Bob and Linda?”

“No.”

“Peter Pan and Wendy?”

“Bucky.”

“What?”

“Sonny and Cher.”

“Who?”

“Are you _serious_ right now?”

“Serious about how old you are, yeah.”

* * *

 

**November**

“Stevie, I’m dyin’,” Bucky complained, moaning in discomfort as he lay with his head on Steve’s chest, his jeans way too fucking tight. Maybe the fourth slice of Winnie Barnes’ pecan pie had been a bad idea. It usually was, yet he did it every year.

“Because you ate too much,” Steve replied. “Moderation in all things, Bucky, that’s what I always say.”

“Steeeeeeve…”

“Fine,” Steve smiled, kissing the top of his head before popping the button on his jeans, rubbing his stomach lightly. “That’s an impressive food baby you got going there, Barnes.”

“Yup,” Bucky agreed. “Giving birth tomorrow. Probably.”

“Don’t be disgusting,” Steve said, grinning in spite of himself.

“You like it,” Bucky smirked, sighing as another little pang of discomfort passed through him. He really had eaten way, way too much for one sitting. Still, it had been worth any minor pain to have Steve there with his family. The initial awkwardness of introducing someone new to the proceedings had given way to a genuinely nice evening. Steve and his parents had similar interests and politics, so they’d spent a lot of time on that, which made Bucky happy in a very funny, fulfilled sort of way. (Becca had been his saving grace, buffering the awkward questions and dropping the bombshell in the middle of dinner that she’d also met a guy, and he was coming to Christmas.)

“I like you,” Steve shrugged. “Gluttony notwithstanding.”

* * *

 

**December**

Bucky looked over the carnage, tiny little hotels and houses scattered throughout the living room, brightly colored money strewn across the sofa.

“I told you,” Sam sighed, laying a comforting hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “This is why we don’t let Steve and Peggy play Monopoly at Christmas.”

“I had no idea,” Bucky said solemnly.

Sharon nodded, moving over to start tidying the tiny pieces, as well as the upended board. “It was all over when Peggy bought Park Place.”

Bucky went to help her, trying not to smile as he picked up the top hat and dropped it back into the box. “Steve’s a sore loser.”

“Let’s just hope they don’t wake the kids,” Sam replied.

* * *

 

**January**

“I wasn’t going to _hit it_.”

“You were going too fast!” Steve replied. Bucky glared at him, eyes narrowing as he reached for the gear shift again, fully intending to put the car back into drive.

“We are in a _parking lot_. There isn’t even anything else around. Stop being a dick.”

“I’m not being a dick, you’re being a maniac. You barely have your learner’s permit, you need to slow down.”

“I was going ten miles an hour! You’re overprotective and paranoid!”

“You’re reckless!”

Bucky glowered for two full minutes before Steve offered to pay for a real driver’s ed course.

He begrudgingly accepted.

* * *

 

**February**

After getting a dud the first time out, Steve had recently started seeing a new therapist, a man by the name of Jericho Drumm who had been recommended by one of Bucky’s professors. He was very good at his job, which meant Steve and Bucky were talking more, as well as fighting more. Apparently, that was progress because it meant Steve wasn’t putting Bucky on a pedestal and Bucky was communicating his frustrations effectively. And vice versa, to an extent. It was all healthy, even if it was hard. Being in love wasn’t simple or smooth, but as they headed into month ten of their second try, Bucky was finding it was worth the trouble.

“Bucky,” Steve murmured on a Sunday morning, waking him slowly with sweet, easy kisses all the way up his spine. It was rare for them to have an entire morning to themselves, but this one promised to be delightful. They would have breakfast delivered, then their only plans were to laze about in bed, trading sections of the paper and figuring out the crossword together.

“Mmm,” Bucky smiled, still drowsy as he rolled onto his back and patted the top of Steve’s head clumsily. “Morning, Daddy.”

“Morning, pretty,” Steve replied, leaning up to capture his mouth. He looked down at Bucky fondly when he pulled back. “I think I’m gonna marry you one day.”

Bucky smiled.

* * *

 

**March**

Bucky’s birthday fell on a Sunday that year. Steve surprised him the evening before with a massive party at the penthouse that went all night, their friends and acquaintances either making it home in the wee hours of the morning or passing out on various pieces of furniture.

Steve woke a very hungover Bucky the next day with a cupcake and a blowjob, which perked him up considerably. Afterwards, they made their way downstairs, stepping over an unconscious Clint Barton, who was sucking his thumb while sleeping next to the big sofa in the living room. Why he hadn’t made it onto the couch, Bucky couldn’t fathom.

He and Steve headed out to the balcony together, because friends or no friends, they liked to have their coffee on the patio as often as their schedules and the weather permitted.

It was a chilly morning, but flannel pajamas and slippers helped. Steve brought the coffee out, presenting Bucky with a big mug before sitting across the table from him and reaching for his hand.

“So did I ruin your birthday this year?” he teased.

Bucky smiled, pushing his fingers together with Steve’s and shrugging. “Not yet. But there’s still time.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Steve smirked, bringing Bucky’s hand up to press a kiss to the back. “Happy birthday, Bucky. I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks! Except, you know, the one-shots I have planned. First up: Steve's perspective on his initial interactions with Bucky - or James, as he was thinking of him then. I should have it up this weekend. If you're interested in reading more in this 'verse, please subscribe to the series or to me as an author so you'll be notified when there's something new.
> 
> I am 100% open to suggestions for things people would like to see me write with these two! I can't guarantee I'll take everything on, but if there's something you're dying to see them get up to, suggest it in the comments or send it to me on [Tumblr](https://notlucy.tumblr.com).
> 
> On a sappy note, I want to say thank you to everyone who has bookmarked, left kudos and comments, or subscribed to this story. This is the first long-form fic I've ever finished, and my first big fic in years. Having such a huge response to it has been overwhelming. I'm so grateful, and I have some additional Stucky works either partially written or forming in my brain, so watch this space.
> 
> Special shout-out to [Crockzilla](http://archiveofourown.org/users/crockzilla), who is my muse and the reason I think up all the delightfully dirty things I do. Also, thanks to [Chemegeek](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chemegeek) for reaching out and being such a great cheerleader throughout this thing. New friends, yay! 
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at [notlucy](https://notlucy.tumblr.com).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Dinner with Friends](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12658416) by [Crockzilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crockzilla/pseuds/Crockzilla)
  * [(PODFIC) Proprietary Information by NotLucy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13650441) by [AvidReaderLady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvidReaderLady/pseuds/AvidReaderLady)
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